Discover the fusion of fashion and the digital frontier as we sit down with Colby Mugrabi, the visionary blending NFTs with timeless style. She takes us on her unique journey from vintage fashion aficionado to the creative force behind mmERCH, a generative fashion brand at the helm of the Web3 revolution. Embrace the excitement of a world where coders become celebrated artists and luxury garments hold the potential to double as digital assets.
Venture with us to Tokyo's bustling streets and beyond, all from the comfort of your headphones. We traverse cultural landscapes, share personal stories that shaped our artistic tastes, and even uncover the disciplined world of martial arts that informs our creative process. Colby's insights into the potential of generative design bring a fresh perspective, highlighting the promise of a fashion industry that marries individual expression with cutting-edge technology.
Anticipate the future of fashion as we unveil the intimate connection between bespoke design and blockchain. Colby Mugrabi lifts the veil on the synergy of physical and digital realms, giving us a glimpse into creating unique, personalized experiences that champion the individual. Get ready to reimagine your wardrobe and your digital identity on this episode where culture, art, and the dawn of a new fashion era collide.
https://twitter.com/MinnieMuse_eth
https://twitter.com/mmERCH
Discover the fusion of fashion and the digital frontier as we sit down with Colby Mugrabi, the visionary blending NFTs with timeless style. She takes us on her unique journey from vintage fashion aficionado to the creative force behind mmERCH, a generative fashion brand at the helm of the Web3 revolution. Embrace the excitement of a world where coders become celebrated artists and luxury garments hold the potential to double as digital assets.
Venture with us to Tokyo's bustling streets and beyond, all from the comfort of your headphones. We traverse cultural landscapes, share personal stories that shaped our artistic tastes, and even uncover the disciplined world of martial arts that informs our creative process. Colby's insights into the potential of generative design bring a fresh perspective, highlighting the promise of a fashion industry that marries individual expression with cutting-edge technology.
Anticipate the future of fashion as we unveil the intimate connection between bespoke design and blockchain. Colby Mugrabi lifts the veil on the synergy of physical and digital realms, giving us a glimpse into creating unique, personalized experiences that champion the individual. Get ready to reimagine your wardrobe and your digital identity on this episode where culture, art, and the dawn of a new fashion era collide.
https://twitter.com/MinnieMuse_eth
https://twitter.com/mmERCH
Who is this guy? Who is this guy?
Colby Mugrabi:Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Norcal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal and chill podcast. So it's chill time, norcal and chill podcast. What the fuck? What the chill? Norcal and chill podcast? What the sh what the sh NorCal and Shill Podcast. So it's Shill time, norcal. And.
NorCal Guy:Shill Podcast. What the sh-? What the sh-.
NorCal Guy:Hey everyone welcome to this next episode of NorCal and Shill. Today we are joined by a special guest, colby Mugrabi. Colby is at the forefront of merging fashion with the revolutionary world of NFTs and crypto art. Colby is passionate about the intersection of art and technology, seeing NFTs as the future of creative expression. She draws a compelling parallel between the advent of photography and how coders today are redefining artistry through generative art.
NorCal Guy:With a fascinating background, in vintage fashion collecting, colby highlights a treasured Coco Chanel piece from 1932, but it's her current work with NFTs and the Web3 ecosystem that has us enthralled. She's particularly excited by the sense of community in Web3, which offers the chance to connect with industry innovators. At the core of our conversation is Colby's venture into Merch, a Web3 native, generative fashion brand that melds design attributes through algorithms. These unique creations will first come to life as NFTs before being minted into physical garments and will be showcasing at NFT, nyc and minting in mid-April. Colby shares her belief that nothing worthwhile comes easily, a sentiment mirrored in her embrace of challenges within the digital art and NFT domain. She is confident in continued growth and innovation over the next five years and beyond, gives us insights into her projects, but also leaves us with an exciting glimpse into a future where digital and physical merge seamlessly in the world of fashion and art. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of NorCal and Chill and please welcome Colby Mugrabi. Hey, colby, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?
Colby Mugrabi:Hi, good Thanks for having me.
NorCal Guy:Yeah, this is a great introduction from Buna to introduce us, so we could kind of connect, and I think it's fascinating what you're working on and can't wait to hear more about it.
Colby Mugrabi:Thank you. I was really excited when Buna connected us and you know I am working with the Schiller team. They're all amazing and you know it's always great to meet anyone in the ecosystem.
NorCal Guy:For sure, for sure. So let's just dive right into it. What were your first thoughts when you heard about NFTs and crypto art?
Colby Mugrabi:My first thoughts were like, oh my God, this is the future, this is where the world is heading, not only in the sense of, like you know, the fine art world, but also just a blockchain infrastructure led world. And just thinking about, obviously, blockchain is kind of the future of the internet. And just thinking about how all physical assets, all assets, will either be strictly digital or digital, physical, and, you know, as someone that has a background in art and in fashion, I thought those two worlds are so ripe for this technology. And then, you know, more specifically, with NFTs, just being so interested not only in, like I said, the infrastructure layer, but also kind of this whole new world of creators, new world of creators Specifically, you know, when I started learning about generative art, I was really fascinated with drawing parallels between the history of art and, you know, for example, the invention of the camera, and understanding how that really expanded the art world to not only include painters and sculptors but, you know, created a new medium, which was photography.
Colby Mugrabi:And then to apply that same logic and think about, wow, in the future, or today and into the future, like, artists will not only be painters, sculptors, photographers, but they're also coders. And so, you know that was really. I always like to frame things through a historical lens, whether it be art history or the history of fashion or history of architecture or industrial design, like I always like to find kind of through lines throughout history. And so I just remember, when I really started digging into generative art, that was the first thing that came to mind was like how monumental this is, both for the art world specifically, but also for the world as a whole right, no, I can see that and it's funny you say that about the coders, because I'm like I don't know why, like, because I get gen art.
NorCal Guy:And I'm like, oh, I don't know why, like cause I get gen art. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's definitely art and everything. Um, but it's funny, like cause it is. You know, it is art, text-based art that generates this image.
Colby Mugrabi:It's amazing, um also just in terms of creative output. Um, you know, I think you look back just 50 years and Andy Warhol started using silk screening and he was getting a lot of pushback on like, well, your process, 20 times the speed, as you know, another artist could, and now it's like even you know more exponential kind of the speed and turnaround through which artists can create outputs or collections of outputs you know an algorithm can, is it's as easy for an algorithm to generate a million today and just to think about all of the work that will be put out into the world. For you know some, most of it probably bad, but some of it really good, which obviously is, you know, another, an extension of, I think, the present day art world, which is a lot of the art, is not great, but then some of it is really special.
NorCal Guy:For sure, for sure. So did you collect art or anything else before you got into the NFT space?
Colby Mugrabi:Well, my husband is an art dealer, so he collects art. Well, my husband is an art dealer, so he collects art, and so I was super lucky to always be around art and visiting museums. And I personally collector drive in me, but previously, and probably most authentically, it's expressed towards vintage fashion. So I've been obsessed with fashion since I was a little girl and I'm constantly looking, I'm constantly on the hunt for vintage couture. So you know, probably spanning about the last 60 years is my collection wow, it's amazing.
NorCal Guy:Thank you, um. What is your favorite piece out of that? Do you have a favorite or a cup? I?
Colby Mugrabi:mean, that's like three choosing a favorite child. I now have two children, so I now finally understand what that expression is. It's like so unfair. Well, I have some pieces that are like from the early 1930s, from Coco Chanel, which was the founder of the House of Chanel. I have a really beautiful evening set from 1932. And it's the only known example that has a matching jacket. It's all black sequins.
NorCal Guy:Oh, wow.
Colby Mugrabi:So that's a special piece.
NorCal Guy:Wow, that's awesome.
Colby Mugrabi:Special piece.
NorCal Guy:Thank you, thank you, wow. So what are the best things about Web3 today?
Colby Mugrabi:I mean A I just love the community aspect.
Colby Mugrabi:Yeah, ecosystem, currently, that as, like a new entrant, I I started learning about the space in March of 2021.
Colby Mugrabi:I think, like a lot of people did, after the people sale happened, um, and just finally, from one day to the next hearing, like NFT, the metaverse, web, three, sort of everywhere, um, and I just always say that the amount of, like, leaders in the space that I've, at some point over the last, you know, two and a half, three years, been able to speak with and connect with and learn from, have a conversation with no-transcript um, would be far greater.
Colby Mugrabi:So to me, that was one of the most exciting things entering Web3 was really being able to form these like bonds with people that are, you know, true leaders in the space, and being able to do that in um, you know, only a few years time. And, and obviously you know, meeting people every single day and meeting inspiring people every day and meeting people that really have strong points of view and understand where the world is going, and also, you know, coming at it from a fashion background and really, hopefully, being able to add something to those conversations, too, is another aspect that I, you know, really admire, and something that I aspire to do every day.
NorCal Guy:For sure.
Colby Mugrabi:So where do you see digital art and NFTs as also being more tied to physical assets? So, you know, something that really excites me is this digital physical trend and I guess I don't want to say trend, because hopefully it's not fleeting, hopefully it's here to stay. But when I originally had conversations with people, you know, two years ago, I think everyone was so hardcore like digital only, digital only, digital only. And over the course of the bear market, I think I've seen more of a shift towards, you know, collectors and and VCs in the space and you know project founders in the space still obviously, you know putting a tremendous value on the digital but also being more open to those physical counterparts or physical kind of twins or assets. So I think, and I think that's a real opportunity to onboard, you know, more traditional consumer maybe someone that's not in Web3 is, through that physical component, tied to digital assets and then sort of outside the realm of just strictly NFTs as artwork, I see there being a huge use case for NFTs as sort of the product passports of physical, you know, assets that already exist.
Colby Mugrabi:So in terms of you know putting sort of my fashion hat on, I see a real opportunity for luxury brands to issue NFTs for you know some of their handbags. For example, if you bought a handbag at Chanel and you get an NFT that goes with it, it's an opportunity for that brand to take part in the secondary market of that handbag. So if these huge luxury brands can tap into their secondary markets and potentially create new revenue streams through secondary market commissions and royalties moving forward, I think that's a huge unlock for brands and also, when you're getting into the realm of the Chanel and the Vuitton, the Hermes, there are such tremendous numbers associated with that unlock that I think that will definitely be one of the first use cases for luxury brands to actually sort of engage with and implement blockchain-based technologies into their products.
NorCal Guy:And that makes a lot of sense. I mean there's definitely an untapped market, a huge benefit, and I mean it's more engaging too, you can, you know, because once those consumers have like those nfts or whatnot, you can do like special things for certain people or specific id numbers or whatever like.
Colby Mugrabi:so there's a lot of things uh, interesting things that could happen for sure I also think that um in terms of provenance too, both of either, you know, clothing or even art, like I think, every single painting in the physical world should somehow have an on-chain element. You know, imagine just provenance of a of a painting. Okay, if I loan a painting to a museum for an exhibition, that painting should have a nft associated with it that maybe uses the um. Is it the 6551 standard that can also own secondary NFTs?
NorCal Guy:That might be right. Yeah, yes, there is that new standard where it can have a bundle of NFT. I don't know the specific name on that one, but yes.
Colby Mugrabi:So imagine a physical. So just let's take a Warhol painting.
NorCal Guy:So imagine there's take it in the Warhol painting.
Colby Mugrabi:So imagine there's an NFT for that Warhol painting. That painting is loaned to MoMA for an exhibition. The NFT that let's just say 6551, I hope that's right. I hope that's right is then issued an NFT or like a POAP of sorts that shows what museum it was shown at, what the dates were, what the exhibition was, and that will forever, you know, be part of that main NFT for the work. So if it's sold later on, that whole provenance travels with the work to its new owner, to its new wallet.
NorCal Guy:Right, yeah, and that's like an easy way that doesn't degrade with time and yeah, it's huge. It's a huge thing for the art space that is untapped at the moment.
Colby Mugrabi:Definitely so. I think as much opportunity as there is in the digital art space, there's as much, if not even more, opportunity in thinking about how we can add a blockchain layer to real world, physical world assets and you know, have a presence on, know, have a, have a presence on, have them have a presence on chain through nft no, I love that.
NorCal Guy:So I don't know how many nfts you've bought, but in general, when you go to buy a piece of art, is there like a method to the madness? Do you like watch the artist? Do I mean, I know in the traditional you're not not really in contact with the artist from my knowledge, but um like in this space you are. So I guess it'd be interesting to hear your approach to buying art in the digital realm and your thoughts on that.
Colby Mugrabi:I mean, I definitely start like sort of a trad art or, I think, any art collector which is like what do I like visually, aesthetically? Obviously, you know if something, if I'm drawn to something, it's first aesthetically. It's like judging a book by its cover before you really know what the story is about. Yeah, um, and then obviously it's unpacking the story. It's understanding who the artist is. If it's a collection, um, it's understanding you know what kind of what processes were used by the artist, especially sort of in a in a gen art collection. It's, you know, kind of understanding the code side of the work in a one of one. Uh, you know, in the case of one of one art it's a bit different.
Colby Mugrabi:Obviously, you know, with pfps it's like okay, well, what embodies me, like you know, what pfp do I want to be today? Um, I think there's obviously like some kind of real collections. I'm a huge fan of CryptoPunks who isn't at this point? But then you know, I think, something I I first discovered art blocks in August of 2021.
Colby Mugrabi:And I know there were a handful of projects already on the platform that I maybe saw and just, you know, didn't fully grasp or understand at the time, or maybe some that I liked, just you know visually but didn't really understand kind of the story behind them or the processes behind them. And you know a lot of them. I've since learned about, you know, since first seeing them, and definitely have newfound learned about, you know, since first seeing them and definitely have newfound appreciation for, you know, different projects and obviously just for the work that goes into creating these outputs and refining the code. And so I think there's a lot of different kind of layers to collecting and to seeing what work you like and really to understanding. You know different artists and different styles, but I'd say first I'm drawn aesthetically to works and then, you know, unpacking the story behind them and the processes behind them oftentimes, even you know, adds more of an emotional connection.
NorCal Guy:No, that makes perfect sense. Is there anything you'd like to see more of in this NFT space?
Colby Mugrabi:I mean sort of going back to our conversation earlier about maybe the ease in which your artists are maybe able to create outputs, whether it be 10 or 10,000. I'd say that's tremendous and, you know, gives artists a lot of kind of flexibility, but also isn't necessarily the best on kind of a larger scale, in that sometimes lack of curation and lack of, um, of just that kind of uh, this sense where, like traditionally, art dealers work with their artists and maybe you know, say, okay, you created these 15 paintings for a show, like these 12 are the best, like those three are not as good. So I think I'd love to see more curation in the space and, just you know, having there be a certain taste level. In some cases, I think you know any space needs more and more taste. So I would say, just you know, that curatorial eye I think is important, whether it be on the collector side or on the artist side.
NorCal Guy:I think a curatorial eye, All right, that makes sense and I agree. I do agree. What is the best piece of advice you've been given? Or do you have like a mantra that you have in your head that you just kind of like go through like a belief advice?
Colby Mugrabi:well, I answered this way before, but I I can't come up with a better answer. So I would say, um, this idea that nothing good is easy and nothing easy is good, um is one of my favorite sayings, because whenever you're, whenever something's too easy, I would say, you like, either keep refining whatever it is, or you just, you know, maybe it's not ready to go out into the world, um, and then you know, when something's not easy and it takes a lot of time, whether it's building something or working on something, I would say that you know, chances are the you're just making the end result better and better. So it kind of gives you perspective on either side.
NorCal Guy:Yeah, I like that. So if you could live or move anywhere, where would you live and why?
Colby Mugrabi:Definitely Tokyo.
NorCal Guy:Oh, okay.
Colby Mugrabi:I would love to live in Japan. I think the only thing that would really be the biggest issue would probably be the time change to, like you know, my family and kind of the rest of the world. I just love japanese culture. I love that, like you know, drive towards like excellence and superior quality and and that just focus on, I mean talk about like refinement. Um, I think, in every sense of the word, the Japanese are, you know, refined in how they approach design and manufacturing and food and I really I love, I love Tokyo.
NorCal Guy:I love it. Do you have a favorite movie quote or music lyric?
Colby Mugrabi:lyric um, I would say one of the first movies that I really I mean besides like kiddie movies um, that I watched, that I just fell in love with, was clueless yeah yeah and there's a great scene where she's wearing an alaya dress and this guy comes to rob her and he asks her to get on the ground and she goes. But I'm wearing an alaya and he goes. And a whata?
NorCal Guy:and she goes an alaya.
Colby Mugrabi:He's like a really important designer and I would say that's probably what that stuck with me for a really long time, um, and one of my favorite favorite movies growing up so maybe it's maybe that like spurred my love of fashion when I was little.
Colby Mugrabi:I've never made that connection before, but it could be, it could be, it could be. What the best thing, probably. Um God, now I'm like, I'm like looking around my office, um, I, the silliest thing. I took my daughter to an art installation the other day. That was actually really cool and it was this deli, but everything was made out of felt.
NorCal Guy:So it was like felt bagels.
Colby Mugrabi:you know soda cans, so I bought I felt rainbow bagel which I thought was really cool and you know she's three and she thought it was cool for like a minute or two and then not for much longer. So that's a pretty silly thing to spend money on. I would say is a rainbow felt bagel, yeah.
Colby Mugrabi:And then you know the best thing, I would say, pieces in my collection, whether it be my, you know, vintage collection. I have a book collection that I absolutely love, that I, you know, always turn to my books to get to read, to get inspired, to do research. So you know I can you can never have too many books, for sure and I will never stop buying books adding to my library. So books are always a good idea.
NorCal Guy:So if you could commission a piece of art and have two artists collab on it, which two artists would it be?
Colby Mugrabi:Do these artists have to be in the Web3 space?
NorCal Guy:No, I'll let you branch out and do whatever.
Colby Mugrabi:And do they need to be living?
NorCal Guy:No, we'll free reign on this one.
Colby Mugrabi:And okay, I would say I mean, look of there's so many incredible examples from the 20th century of artists collaborating. I actually think and this is, I'm sure, you could draw interesting parallels to sort of the dynamic of artists, you know, throughout the 20th century and kind of that uh camaraderie that they had and and it kind of feels like how web 3 is currently today, not necessarily manning, manifesting itself through artists collaborating per se, but it's like the world is so small and it's so concentrated, as we were talking about, and I feel like there's a real just focus on trying to support each other and trying to support each other's projects and each other's work. Camaraderie between artists today and Web3, as there was between, you know, artists in the early 20th century, whether it be, you know, salvador Dali and Elsa Schiaparelli, who was an Italian fashion designer, you know they had a long standing collaboration Artists, like you know, marcel Duchamp and all the different Dada artists, and then even, like you know, through the 1980s. So Warhol and Basquiat worked on their collaboration series, which is, you know, one of probably the most well-known examples of artists collaborating.
Colby Mugrabi:So I would say I would love I mean, I'm a big fan of Bosco and Warhol, I think seeing Andy Warhol work with a contemporary artist would be interesting, like to think about what artists he would work with today. And then also, you know that crossover between art and fashion. So you know there's so many examples of contemporary artists working in the context of fashion. So I would say I would either pair warhol with salvador dali, because I also love surrealism and I think that would be a really cool, yeah, collaboration, um, or maybe warhol with a contemporary, um, fashion designer okay and you know, think about kind of how he would be reactive to the world today.
Colby Mugrabi:Uh, I think would be interesting, especially through the lens of fashion yeah, I think that's.
NorCal Guy:Uh, that'd be interesting if we get those good, those good picks, good great choices. Thank, you what is one interesting fact about you that people might not be aware of?
Colby Mugrabi:I did um, I did muay thai for like 14 years, so that could be one yeah, I don't if you. I don't know if I scream like Muay Thai person when you see me, so uh no, no, that was definitely um a hidden talent, for sure.
Colby Mugrabi:Yeah, hidden talent. Um, I don't know if I have any other talents. I did. I got my first job when I was like eight years old. I worked at a clothing store on the weekends in Chicago. So that's not necessarily a hidden talent, but you know something that people probably don't know about me.
NorCal Guy:Right.
Colby Mugrabi:But yeah, I'd say, like the Muay Thai one is definitely more out of left field.
NorCal Guy:It is, it is. Do you have any hot takes?
Colby Mugrabi:have any hot takes. Well, I, my pfp on twitter is a crypto dickbutt.
NorCal Guy:So I would say 1b equals 1b is my hot take. Okay, all right, that's fair, that's fair. So, merch, you're working on this project. This project, merch, this project, merch, tell me about it.
Colby Mugrabi:You know. So, as I was saying, when I started learning about Web3 in March of 2021, I got really interested in thinking about, kind of how this space will manifest itself in the context of fashion. And especially when I started learning about generative art and through unpacking kind of, and understanding the mechanics of generative art, I thought why has no one ever applied a generative design process towards physical product? So that's how I came up with the idea for Merch towards physical product. So that's how I came up with the idea for Merch, which is a Web3 native generative fashion brand. So all of our products are designed through algorithms and through understanding sort of the process of generative art.
Colby Mugrabi:I realized that generative design enables you to create one of one product at scale, which has never been done before in the physical space. So it's obviously, you know, like we were saying, much simpler to execute when you're talking strictly digital, but then when you have a physical asset tied to it, the manufacturing complexity is sort of add, you know, I think, exponential difficulties into the equation. So all of our merch products exist first as NFTs, so in their digital form they follow a traditional kind of NFT mint, and then each NFT is redeemable for a physical version of whatever composition of product you have in your artwork. So our, in the case of our first drop, it's hoodies. I'm wearing a, a prototype right now um, and then each nft is also gives you access to a virtual version, so that's an asset for the metaverse. So for our first collection, they're actually avatars, but in the future we anticipate that virtual asset also being a one-of-one wearable for use in the metaverse for each collection.
NorCal Guy:Wow, okay, I'm curious about the process. Like so for those listening, currently Colby's wearing a like light blue hoodie with a red pocket oh, a red pocket for your hands and a sleeve. That is her left sleeve is camouflaged and her hood is dark blue dark blue.
Colby Mugrabi:So basically, our approach to generative design is first we choose a silhouette okay then we break down the silhouette into a set of design traits.
Colby Mugrabi:So for a hoodie, there's six design traits, as you were going through them the hood, hood, the body, the pocket, each sleeve and then the bands. Okay, and then we curate all of the attribute inputs. So the attributes include color, pattern and material. So what really excites me is thinking about how we can take mechanics and processes that are native to Web3 and translate them authentically into the realm of fashion and vice versa, as a model, for example, and thinking about rarity of traits, rarity of attributes, trait count, and thinking about how we can apply those mechanics to physical product.
Colby Mugrabi:So, silhouette, breaking down a number of traits, curating the different colors, patterns and materials, then assigning rarity values to each attribute. So, similar to punks, how you know, some sunglasses are more rare than others and some hair colors are more rare than others. In our case, some colors are more rare, some patterns are more rare and some materials are more rare. So this prototype is cashmere. We also have French terry, okay. So of the 960 outputs in our first collection, 860 of them have the material attribute of French Terry, which means if your NFT says French Terry in the metadata and you redeem your physical, you get a French Terry version of your hoodie, but a hundred of the 960 say cashmere. So if your NFT says cashmere and you redeem a physical, you get a cashmere hoodie.
NorCal Guy:Nice. All right, that makes sense. Thank you for going into a little bit of explanation on that, because I think it's very interesting. Very interesting Because I've seen the more that what I have seen so far is more like with 90 CC, when they like kind of partnered and did like the squiggle color, different colors on, like T-shirts. It was like right in the chest and it was like being just what was that? Anyways, colored on the chair. I forget the freaking plot. What was?
Colby Mugrabi:printed. I think they were printed. I don't know if they what type of oh it might have been printed.
NorCal Guy:I wasn't sure if they were the plot matrix, the plotter, if they were automatically plotted right there with a pen, or if they were.
Colby Mugrabi:I wasn't there for the event, so I didn't get to see I think he used I mean, I saw I wasn't there either I I think they used a printer okay certain type of printer, for yeah, to print them on demand yeah, well, I, I like your approach um thank you, it's very interesting.
Colby Mugrabi:One thing you know I didn't necessarily call out, but through walking you through the generative design process, I think you know one of our kind of unique moats that we've hopefully created around the concept is the fact that we're generative down to manufacturing. So, instead of just using topical treatments, it's the, it's the algorithm that takes into account all those inputs and then creates all the outputs and assigns each design attribute to each trait of the hoodie. And just to give you a sense of scale, with six design traits and 30 attribute inputs, there's over, I think, 732 million unique possible combinations. So that goes back to our conversation around like curation of outputs. But I actually was really insistent that we didn't necessarily curate the outputs, we curated the inputs.
Colby Mugrabi:So when you think about traditionally, you know fashion designers are known as creative directors of a brand, yeah, and I really think of myself and what me and my team do as, like, curative directors. So it's up to us to do the curation of the color palette, the materials, the you know different artworks for the patterns, and you know it's ensuring that you have a solid enough kind of catalog of colors and patterns to work with to ensure that these randomized outputs are actually, you know, not as random as they. You know as they could be if you didn't put all that time and attention and care into really ensuring that the inputs are. You know that you have a great palette, that you have a great catalog of patterns and that you've really done that pre-work to ensure that these randomized outputs are actually things people will want to wear.
NorCal Guy:Right, right. So when does this happen? When does this go live?
Colby Mugrabi:So I'm really excited to sort of have an event during NFT. Nyc, which is April 4th, is going to be our event and we'll have physical product there for people to see in person, which is something that's super exciting to me because we put so much time and energy and care and attention into developing these high quality physicals. So I'm hoping it really sort of gets people excited to hopefully mint and our collection drops on um in mid April. So, hopefully around April 16th.
NorCal Guy:Nice, awesome man. That's exciting and I um I hope to check it out in on the fourth, so I hope to see you there.
Colby Mugrabi:Hopefully next time we chat you'll be wearing a merch hoodie.
NorCal Guy:Well, uh, what, uh, oh, can you redeem them? Will they be redeemable by the time?
Colby Mugrabi:They're going to be redeemable. So our process that we're sort of anticipating is the mint. You know. Let's just say on Tuesday April 16th There'll be a reveal of the artwork. So there'll be a pre-reveal image for either, you know, a few hours maybe until the collection hopefully mints out maybe for a day or two there's flexibility on that and then your hoodie attributes will reveal, um, so you'll be able to see which colors and patterns you have, what their distribution is on the product. You'll be able to see what material attribute you have, how many traits your hoodie is and also if you have a core style.
Colby Mugrabi:That I wanted to include in merch specifically in this first collection is this idea of like core styles and these sub communities that could kind of form within the collection as a whole.
Colby Mugrabi:So there's about 11 core styles within the 960 outputs. So one of them, for example, is called a lefty, which means the whole hoodie was assigned the same color, except the left sleeve is a different color pattern. There's one called a righty, which is the same idea, except the right sleeve is a different color pattern. There's one called varsity, which means the hood, the body and the pocket have the same color, the two sleeves have the same color and the bands are a different color, so it kind of mirrors, mimics a varsity jacket, right. So, anyways, those my hope is those kind of create these sub communities within the overall collection, um, and then you know, the following week will open the redemption window so you'll be able to start redeeming, uh, the physicals, and then the redemption window will be open until our second drop. So it'll be open for a few months and then every redemption window closes right before the next drop drops.
NorCal Guy:Awesome. Well, the only unfortunate thing is I feel like I'm gonna have to get a few of these, so it's not like a one and done type thing you can never have too many hoodies, and we have, we have.
Colby Mugrabi:You know, we're working on developing a lot of different um silhouettes and different product categories and you know, one of the kind of driving factors behind why I thought generative design and why I think generative design is the future of fashion, is this idea of one of one outputs and one of one for everyone, and I really think that consumers are constantly looking for unique products to represent their distinctive identities, and the only way you can truly achieve that is through generative design constantly looking for unique products to represent their distinctive identities, and the only way you can truly achieve that is through generative design. So I think our brand positioning, being one of one for everyone, is hopefully compelling on a collector side and on a consumer side and also keeps people coming back for more.
NorCal Guy:For sure they will For sure, wow, wow, for sure they will for sure, wow, wow. Colby, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and spending a chunk of your time and diving deep into your project, because I think it's pretty fascinating and I can't wait to be a part of it somehow.
Colby Mugrabi:Thank you. Well, thank you so much. I love talking NFTs, I love talking you know fashion, I love talking generative fashion. So thanks so much for having me and, yeah, I hope we can chat again soon. Norco, guy Norco and chill Podcast.
NorCal Guy:Chill, it's chill time, norco and chill Podcast. What the Chill, what the Chill.
Colby Mugrabi:Norco and chill Podcast. Chill, it's chill time. Norco and chill Podcast. What the Chill, what the Chill.