In order to develop “digital twins” for their high-end items, luxury fashion businesses are looking beyond the turmoil that the crypto industry is currently experiencing.
The Aura Blockchain Consortium was established by the luxury behemoths LVMH, Prada, and Cartier as a non-profit platform to develop a digital twin for their clothing. The platform uses blockchain technology, which offers transparency and immutability qualities, to make sure that customers are purchasing authentic copies of the businesses’ products.
Aura uses blockchain to produce distinctive digital identifiers for high-end goods, and 20 companies and over 17 million products have already registered on the platform. Despite being rivals, the companies are cooperating on this technology to advance it more quickly and securely, according to the platform’s general secretary Daniella Ott.
It is not unreasonable to realize that high-end fashion houses would need to work together. By the end of the year, it is expected that the sector would have lost more than $100 million to counterfeits. In addition to losing money, brands also run the risk of having their reputations tarnished by the actions of counterfeiters.
Aura operates by compiling details about the listed objects, such as the date of manufacture, the kind of material used, and the quantity produced in the specific lot. Ott claims that Aura’s development of a digital twin for tangible objects offers military-grade encryption and is accessible via a web app or the platform’s mobile app.
Blockchain technology has received criticism for its energy and environmental friendliness, but Aura says it is defying the trend. Ott said that because it is a private blockchain, less energy is used than with public blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Since Aura is so user-friendly, brands can get started with “zero blockchain knowledge” and the extra flexibility of filtering the types of information provided.
The founding companies that made the largest contribution to the establishment of Aura have a bigger say in how decisions are made in terms of governance. Other businesses joining the platform must pay a licensing fee, but Ott advises businesses to be aware of the limitations of blockchain technology. She cautions that since information input errors are a possibility, brands should maintain positive connections with their suppliers; otherwise, “blockchain will not help.”