History will look back on 2022 as the year fashion jumped headlong into the metaverse pool. It also happened to be the 60th year of existence for the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), which, as part of its year-long celebration, made its first foray into Web3, aka the metaverse, with an exhibit titled “Designing the shades of American Design.”

Darnell-Jamal Lisby, a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York with an MA in fashion and textile history, theory, and museum practice, was selected to lead the curating effort. He is the new assistant curator of fashion at the Cleveland Museum of Art and, like the CFDA himself, a newcomer to avatar fashion.

But once paired with designers from The Sandbox, the virtual space where…