Technologies such as blockchain and NFTs will usher in a new era of creativity where everyone has an equal chance of success regardless of their background, writes Amber Slooten of digital fashion brand The Fabricant in her manifesto for the Dezeen 15 digital festival.

"Imagine a future that belongs to creators," Slooten writes. "A future where we remove history’s gatekeepers and build a new economy where our financial rewards are finally equal to our talent."

Slooten believes that new technologies will allow creatives from anywhere in the world to showcase their talent and achieve success based on merit.

"In this digital future, a kid in Dakar stands as much chance as a kid in Paris of becoming an influential fashion force, with the tools to bring their ideas to life and a network of supporters that promotes, distributes and sells their work," she writes.

To coincide with Slooten's contribution to Dezeen 15, she has today launched The Fabricant Studio, a new platform that "allows anyone to become a digital fashion designer".

The Fabricant has also unveiled Season O, its own debut collection of digital garments created with the new platform.

The Dezeen 15 festival features 15 manifestos presenting ideas that can change the world over the next 15 years. Each contributor will also take part in a live video interview.

See the line-up of contributors here and watch the video interview with Slooten live on Dezeen later today.

Manifesto for the RenaiXance

Imagine a future that belongs to creators: a future where we remove history’s gatekeepers and build a new economy where our financial rewards are finally equal to our talent.

In this digital future, a kid in Dakar stands as much chance as a kid in Paris of becoming an influential fashion force, with the tools to bring their ideas to life and a network of supporters that promotes, distributes and sells their work.

Artists will become the tastemakers, curators and patrons of each others’ work, determining the value of creativity on our terms instead of old-school ideas of worth calling the shots.

We’ll call it the RenaiXance. A new era where we become one another’s most vocal cheerleaders, giving back to our fellow creatives while raising one another up and enabling those with fewer resources.

Collaborations will happen in real-time across the planet, digitally connecting to build multi-creator pieces that give each of us the chance to be recognised and monetise our efforts for the long term.

With this future in our own hands, we can make our own strategies, our own currencies, and our own structures

We’ll dare to become self-sufficient, turning our backs on the systems and institutions that seek to define the rules of engagement, so they can maintain a status quo that works inevitably in their favour.

With this future in our own hands, we can make our own strategies, our own currencies, and our own structures, building autonomous organisations committed to making things equitable for 
 all participants.

The endless toil and hustle won’t just earn us a living but contribute to building a new creative economy that gives back to us as much as we give to it.

Imagine if all of this was possible right here, right now, and a viable plan actionable through technology and collective determination.

This is not some misty-eyed creative fantasy, this is the reality available to all of us through blockchain, crypto and the global market for NFTs.

We're committed to making the decentralised environment central to everything we do. As our co-creators in building a new fashion industry, your participation is not only required but essential to making it happen.

Amber Jae Slooten is the co-founder of the digital fashion house The Fabricant, which she established in 2018 with Kerry Murphy to create clothes that only exist in digital spaces.

She studied at Amsterdam Fashion Institute and became the first-ever fashion student to graduate with an entirely digital collection.

Read more about The Fabricant ›