Dolce & Gabbana sold a nine-piece collection of digital NFTs or nonfungible tokens at an auction held on September 30. A report suggests, the brand also sold some actual couture for a total of 1,885.719 Ether (Ethereum cryptocurrency), or the equivalent of nearly $5.7 million. The sale has increased cryptocurrency’s value by 10 per cent— making the collection worth $6.1 million as the payment to Dolce & Gabbana will be made at market rates rather than values at the auction’s close. The purchasers included Pranksy and Seedphrase, two leading NFT collectors; Boson Protocol, a company building a crypto-commerce protocol; and Red DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization formed in the crypto community to invest in digital fashion.

The project was conceived in April by Shashi Menon, the Dubai-based publisher of Vogue Arabia, and Founder and CEO, UNXD Together, they created Collezione Genesi — or the Genesis Collection. Five pieces of the collection are physical creations, designed and executed by Dolce & Gabbana, with virtual iterations by UNXD for the metaverse: two versions of The Dress from a Dream, in gold and in silver, both with shimmering beads and crystal accents;

The four other pieces are solely digital: three richly embroidered men’s jackets and The Impossible Tiara, made of gems that can’t quite be found on Earth. Based on sketches by the brand’s designers, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, they were constructed by UNXD, using the Polygon blockchain.