The future of digital retail has come to Paris, naturally.

Today, SPIN by lablaco, launched its first digitized retail experience called Web3 Fashion: The Origin Story at the famous Galeries Lafayette Champs-Élysées. The plan is to stage a three-week acquisition with Crypto.com, showing consumers how digitized fashion could pave the way to a more sustainable, zero-waste future. The highlight of the exhibition will be the official launch of SPIN, a marketplace that allows consumers to buy and rent clothing, artwork and physical spaces using virtual and augmented reality.

Speaking to TechCrunch, SPIN founders Lorenzo Albrighi and Eliana Kuo said this is a big step in their hopes of digitizing retail to promote the circular economy. The partnership with Crypto.com is for payments rather than commerce, Albrighi said, adding that fashion likely won’t be affected by the current crypto winter as much of the technology is still new to adapt.

SPIN’s focus is on high-end fashion, which typically has a long post-purchase and secondary lifestyle. Fashion is one of the most polluting industries in the world and is responsible for 20% of water pollution and up to 10% of all CO2 emissions. Even reducing the carbon emissions required to drive to a store is progress. And a lot of fashion, especially fast fashion, ends up in landfills. It is estimated that 64% of the 32 billion fashion items produced each year will end up in landfill.

CFS Founders: Eliana (ShihYun) Kuo, Lorenzo Albrighi_ Image

Gone are the days when one must go to a physical store, for example, to try on and buy clothes. With SPIN, users can enter the VR version of their favorite store and talk to avatar customer service agents to shop for clothes. There’s no need for headphones; Anyone with an internet connection can use the app. It’s simple, chic and the future of shopping. SPIN projects digital images of high-quality products into homes so consumers can see what a Murakami would look like on their walls or what an evening dress might look like.

At the exhibit, visitors can use cryptocurrency to purchase SPIN items from their favorite independent designers and try on “phygital” (physical-digital) clothing using virtual avatars. Every physical garment purchased will have QR code tags sewn in so consumers can easily scan, view and track a product’s life cycle.

Coined on the most sustainable blockchain flow, the SPIN app helps track ownership of an item, so consumers always know where their product came from and where it’s going. This feature is an easy and accessible start to help consumers become more aware of the life cycle of their clothing and perhaps more aware of how quickly their shopping habits can become waste. Or, in other words, no one wants to be the person on the blockchain who tossed their turtleneck in the trash.

“The final piece of the puzzle is to reduce the friction for anyone accessing virtual spaces beyond the VR headset,” Albrighi said. “We are excited to see how virtual reality experiences on mobile phones and desktop computers lower that barrier and provide access to any user around the world.”

Kuo added to that, saying he hopes the display and app will help consumers understand how the digital world can help create a better world in person.

“We are building Web3 commerce and marketplace to add value to the physical world,” he said. “Physical fashion products are almost like a work of art, recording the time we live in, humanity and culture. This is not something we can make up with AI in a few seconds. On the contrary, AI learns from our history to become knowledge”.

SPIN’s first investor was Arnaud Massenet, co-founder of Net-a-Porter, and it has since received funding from Dapper Labs with year-round fundraising plans. The goal was always to raise as little money as possible from strategic investors who wouldn’t push them to grow too fast, too soon. That strategy paid off with the slowdown in business last year.

Right now, SPIN is focused on luxury consumers, though it’s not hard to ponder what an app like this could do for a market in desperate need of a transfix, like fast fashion. With these exhibits and the support of investors and partners, Kuo says the company has had the opportunity to showcase what he envisions the next generation of fashion in terms of manufacturing, business models, communication, retail and even the customer service experience.

“Technology is the key to making fashion more sustainable and circular in the long term,” he said. “We want culture and humanity to be the entrance to the conversation.”