Decentralizing Fashion

The stitched.eth ecosystem enables both trustless, on-chain trading of exclusive copyright interests for use in the fashion industry and provably authentic and scarce clothing

Exclusive copyright enables NFT holders to enforce their own IP, a first for the industry, and enables art collectors to equitably invest in artists like never before

...all without securitization, KYC or other centralization problems!

Our NFTs solve real-world problems.

NFTs have gotten a bad rap. Unfortunately, most NFT projects don't even attempt to solve real-world problems, selling JPGs without utility and preying on unsophisticated people. The stitched.eth ecosystem does not follow this model.

Realigning Incentives & Redefining Markets

The stitched.eth ecosystem aims to solve a host of problems for several different groups of people:

(1) artists,

(2) clothing manufacturers,

(3) art collectors/patrons, and

(4) people who wear clothes 😁

The ecosystem does this by realigning incentives, creating a new financial interdependency, and enhancing transparency. In the process, we enable both NFT collectors and traditional art collectors to invest in art and artists (instead of just buying art) by embedding exclusive copyrights - enforceable merely by possessing the NFT - that can rise in value based on the effort and capital of the collectors and artists themselves.

Possessing your own legally-enforceable copyright means you can sue, on your own, for copyright infringement, and no one can take away those rights from you. This allows collectors to confidently invest in promoting the artist and their own art.

Furthermore, our recording and registry process, coupled with the limited-rights scheme in our ecosystem, means that the clothing and accessories featuring the art are verifiably authentic and scarce, transforming clothing from a commodity into a collectible, enhancing its value both in the primary and secondary markets.

What stitched.eth does for Artists
What stitched.eth does for Collectors & Patrons
What stitched.eth does for Clothing Manufacturers
What stitched.eth does for everyone

Project Overview

The stitched.eth project brings real-world utility to the blockchain by (1) embedding exclusive, legally-enforceable intellectual property interests (specifically, exclusive copyright interests) into NFTs and (2) creating an ecosystem wherein anyone with a crypto wallet can trustlessly trade in this real-world intellectual property and even use their copyright - not just sit on it - by manufacturing physical clothing and art with blockchain provenance, thereby creating limited-edition collectible fashions from real-world artists that may or may not be otherwise participating in the blockchain world

This enables collectors, manufacturers and web3 users to trustlessly and equitably invest in artists.

**What stitched.eth does for Artists**

There are serious problems inherent in the traditional contemporary art ecosystem.

Artists have traditionally relied on some combination of private collectors, patrons, non-profits (like museums) or state-sponsored entities (such as municipalities or other government entities) to raise money for projects and to make a living. This creates an inherent power imbalance because artists rely on powerful institutions or wealthy individuals for financial support. Artists can get exploited, and artists themselves may feel pressure to compromise their vision.

Artists also often spend their time negotiating gallery contracts, sales and marketing or else applying to governments or institutions for public funding. This is not the best use of an artist's time.

stitched.eth was founded by a group of art collectors who were hungry for a different kind of contemporary art ecosystem.

The problems that stitched.eth solves for artists

Problem #1. The traditional dynamic does not provide much financial incentive for your collectors and patrons to invest in you or your work. Right now, galleries are the typical gatekeepers who do this kind of work. Galleries do not always make the best gatekeepers... If you're an artist, your most serious collectors and supporters want to invest in you, but the only mechanism to do this is by purchasing and displaying your art at whatever particular private location on earth they chose to place it.
- Why is this a problem? This antiquated ecosystem does not create any kind of real financial incentive for collectors to invest their capital into marketing the artist. Instead of investing money in the artist, they are incentivized only to buy the artwork and hold it. There is no financial incentive for a collector to give the artist money for promotion because the artist is more than happy to sell art in exchange for money. And that's the customary exchange - art for money.
- So the collector will just continue acquiring more art, and the artist is therefore relegated to producing more and more art.
- The financial incentive for the artist is produce art that the collectors want to buy - not necessarily art that the artist wants to produce.
- Some people will buy because they appreciate the work, some people who are speculators might buy work hoping the value goes up. They are similarly incentivized to buy and hold, and acquire more and more artwork. Cynically, this type of collector often sees a major profit only after the artist's death.
- And sadly, in any case, the artist only makes money at the time of the initial sale.
- Most original art is purchased, hung on a wall in some private residence or put in storage. The collector doesn’t benefit from that, and neither does the artist. This does a disservice to both the artist and the collector. Taking away the public's ability to view the work limits the reach of the work, and this hinders both the artist's means to communicate and the public's appreciation for the message.
- With the financial incentives the way they currently are, artists are in a position to be exploited. Artists do not have have an equitable negotiating position. Even if collectors want to support the artists, the financial incentives being the way they are result in the world we all know - collectors buy and hoard art, squirreling it away somewhere. And if the artist wants to expand their collector base, they often have to reduce their prices, give art away or compromise their production method.
- Collectors are not incentivized to spend as much money on art as other traditional investments because there is no available cash flow from owning the art itself and conveyance of the art gives no additional rights. This depresses the amount of money people are willing to pay for art.
- It doesn't have to be this way. Aligning financial incentives between artists and collectors changes the game. Artists can benefit from their collectors in a way that hasn't yet been done - artists can get the benefit of direct investment without having to trade the physical art itself.

Problem #2. Some types of art aren’t really “collectible” - for instance, poetry and street art. You can buy a book or a photograph of a poem or street art, but that isn’t really the official copy or limited edition. And there's no telling how many other similar copies are out there.
- Collectibles are most valuable when they are scarce. Provable scarcity increases the value, and so does provable authenticity. In the traditional, antiquated, art world, the classic example of the attempt to create provable scarcity is through numbered prints. We all know the problem with numbered prints - how do you know that the artist (or copyright holder) isn't going to create additional series of numbered prints.
- When you buy a numbered print, you are trusting the artist or copyright holder to act honestly.
- And prints don't work very well for poetry and street art. Why? Well who knows, but all you have to do is reflect on your own experience - how many people do you know that collect prints of poetry? This problem might actually explain why poetry as an art form has been on the decline.

Problem #3. If you’re in public and look around right now, you’ll see a lot of people wearing clothes that advertise only the clothing manufacturer itself (if anything at all). That’s a huge missed opportunity to advertise amazing artists. Those artists are the culture-bearers who are spreading world-changing ideas, sharing beauty and improving the world around us. Why is it that we have become so comfortable using that advertising space for giant brands or throwing it away all together instead of using it to spread world-changing messages?

Problem #4. The resale market for contemporary artists is so small as to be virtually nonexistent. Part of the reason is that provenance is expensive and time-consuming. It’s also because collectors don’t have a whole lot of financial incentives to spend real money promoting their artists (see Problem #1).

Problem #5. Furthermore, for many artists, it can be prohibitively expensive or time-consuming to create a recurring revenue model where the artist can have a little bit financial breathing room. Printing can be expensive and requires marketing time and expense or gallery markups.

Problem #6. Pricing art for sale to collectors and patrons is challenging as well. Artists typically need to make sure that original art is priced high enough to cover their costs and living expenses, but artists also don't want to limit their art to only collectors who have lots of money.

Problem #7. Using apparel as a medium creates a mechanism to spread the artwork to the public at scale, but it is typically cost-prohibitive for artists because of the high minimum order quantities required to appreciate a reasonable margin and the complicated copyright-brokering process. The powerful institutional clothing brands have limited incentive to work with artists they don't "own" and extract a significant amount of value away from the artists, and sometimes even creative control.

**How does stitched.eth solve these problems?**

>>How artists are chosen

**What stitched.eth does for Collectors & Patrons**

stitched.eth was actually founded by a group of art collectors who were hungry for a different kind of contemporary art ecosystem. In the traditional contemporary art ecosystem, art collectors typically "just" buy art. If an artist wants our support, we ask what they have for sale, and then we can buy it or not. That's how artists make money, and that's how it's always been. But there are serious problems inherent in that traditional ecosystem.

**The problems that stitched.eth solves for collectors and patrons**

Problem #1. As an art collector, if you want to invest in art or support an artist, you buy artwork and hold it and maybe display it. Typically, you'll display the art in your home or other private space, or perhaps it ends up in storage. We all want museums to show off our work, but how often does that really happen - and how often do museums keep their holdings in storage out of public view. This "buy and hide and hold" model doesn't benefit you as a collector or the artist except for a one-time payment of money.
- Why is this a problem? As a collector, you want people to see the art, and so does the artist. In fact, the art becomes more valuable as more people are inspired by it. So you have a financial incentive to get people to see your art, but in the traditional ecosystem, this could only be done by inviting people to where you have it displayed or loaning it to other people.
- Also, as a practical matter, there's only so much wall space any of us have. Eventually, if you want to continue supporting an artist, and the only means you have is to buy art, you're going to be giving the art away or hiding it. There's little financial motivation in buying art just to give it away, which perhaps isn't a problem for you - but it is for the artist. And buying art to put it in storage is not good for anyone in this ecosystem.
- Further, there's no direct, recognizable economic benefit to investing into the artist beyond purchasing their art. Throughout history, we have just accepted this as the "way it is" - that collectors could become patrons, but only at their own expense and for the benefit of artists (which also creates a problematic power dynamic).

Problem #2. To realize a financial return on your investment in artwork, your only option under the traditional ecosystem is to sell the art. Well, that's a problem because you probably really like your art and don't want to part with it. Wouldn't it be great if you could have your cake and eat it too by keeping your art and still realizing some capital appreciation? Sure, you probably didn't get into art collecting to make money - but think about it this way - if you could potentially make money by collecting great art, how much more money would you spend on it in support of the artist? Also, how much more time, capital and energy would you put into promoting the art?

Problem #3. Some types of art aren’t really “collectible” - for instance, poetry and street art. You can buy a book or a photograph of a poem or street art, but that isn’t really the official copy or limited edition. And there's no telling how many other similar copies are out there.
- Collectibles are most valuable when they are scarce. Provable scarcity increases the value, and so does provable authenticity. In the traditional, antiquated, art world, the classic example of the attempt to create provable scarcity is through numbered prints. We all know the problem with numbered prints - how do you know that the artist (or copyright holder) isn't going to create additional series of numbered prints.
- When you buy a numbered print, you are trusting the artist or copyright holder to act honestly.
- And prints don't work very well for poetry and street art. Why? Well who knows, but all you have to do is reflect on your own experience - how many people do you know that collect prints of poetry? This problem might actually explain why poetry as an art form has been on the decline.

Problem #4. If you’re in public and look around right now, you’ll see a lot of people wearing clothes that advertise only the clothing manufacturer itself (if anything at all). That’s a huge missed opportunity to advertise amazing artists. Those artists are the culture-bearers who are spreading world-changing ideas, sharing beauty and improving the world around us. Why is it that we have become so comfortable using that advertising space for giant brands or throwing it away all together instead of using it to spread world-changing messages?

Problem #5. Let's say the artist that you believed in becomes famous and widely collected, and now you do want to realize a financial gain by selling the work you purchased - selling it is not easy. As everyone knows, art resale markets are dominated by auction houses that only want to deal with an exclusive subset of well-known artists. It's often very difficult to resell outside of this context and nearly impossible to authenticate art that you might want to sell. Part of the reason for this is that provenance is expensive and time-consuming. It’s also because collectors don’t have a whole lot of financial incentives to spend real money promoting their artists (see Problem #1).

**How does stitched.eth solve these problems?**

Problems Solved ✔️

stitched.eth empowers both artists and collectors through web3 by enabling collectors to equitably invest in artists. stitched.eth embeds tradable, exclusive, but limited, copyright interests of artwork from artists that collectors already (or want to) collect into NFTs that can be used to manufacture clothing incorporating the artwork (we call these "Copyright NFTs"). Artists don't have to sell their work to get money; instead, collectors have an incentive to spend their money directly promoting and supporting artists and the artwork of their Copyright NFTs. This helps the artist get exposure and support without having to fund projects or sell their time and art.

stitched.eth also registers each garment that is produced on the blockchain, providing a 100% transparent, public mechanism to verify both the authenticity and scarcity of garments.

When collectors buy one of these copyright-embedded NFTs, they are purchasing much more than a JPG - they get the actual, real-world, legally-enforceable intellectual property, and because it's an exclusive right, they are not reliant on us to enforce their copyright. The process of buying an NFT is just the same as buying any other NFT; all they have to do is use their crypto wallet.

This creates an ecosystem where incentives are aligned and there is an economic interdependency that economically benefits both the artists and patrons. Human nature being what it is, when it makes economic sense for people, people will be more willing to support artists than they would be if you rely solely on the kindness of their hearts. stitched.eth therefore incentivizes collectors to invest in artists in a way that has never happened before.

Art comes to life, not just through a sculpture, framed wall art, or a digital NFT, but here also through apparel - transforming artwork into utilitarian consumer products and artists into their own brands. Given the opportunity, consumers would rather be a walking billboard for the artists that they love than for the powerful, damaging brands that they are forced to choose among to clothe themselves.

When a collector buys a stitched.eth copyright-embedded NFT, the collector now owns a very small piece of the intellectual property of the artist. The copyright itself has value that is dependent in no small part on the investment capital, resources, and skill that the owner of the NFT decides to invest in the promotion of the art and the artist. The NFT holder/collector now has an independent financial interest in promoting the artist and that particular artwork because the NFT holder/collector can use the rights without giving up the artwork. The NFT holder/collector can manufacture clothing, promote that clothing, sell the clothing, and still retain ownership of the intellectual property. And now that thousands of people are walking around wearing their favorite artist on their back, the value of that NFT (and even the apparel itself!) increases.

Additionally, the restrictions placed on the copyright allow the artist to keep control over their designs and artwork. The main restrictions are that (1) the only permitted uses are for fashion articles - the artist retains all other uses, (2) all uses of the artwork must be approved by the artist, (3) only a fixed amount - the exact number dependent on the NFT itself - of the artwork can be reproduced each year. Accordingly, artists can maximize the value of their work by capturing recurring revenue through a profit-sharing model, or artists can negotiate any kind of deal that they want with the collector.

So what happens if a deal isn't able to be negotiated? Well, nothing is produced. That does not benefit either the artist or the NFT holder/collector. So both parties have an equal incentive to negotiate and compromise in good faith - hence, equity is inherent in the stitched.eth ecosystem.

In addition, stitched.eth can guarantee the authenticity of physical garments through the blockchain because each time a garment is made, it can be registered on the blockchain as its own "Garment NFT" and delivered to the person who purchased the product. The Garment NFT is registered on our own decentralized, public registry. That way, everyone can trustlessly and transparently know whether a particular is authentic.

Finally, provable scarcity is achieved through the same Garment NFT registry. Each time the artwork is incorporated into a garment, the garment is noted on the registry for the applicable Copyright NFT. These Garment NFTs and combined with the public registry create a digital certificate of authenticity that cannot be replicated.

For artists in our stitched.eth ecosystem, your collectors are financially incentivized to invest in bringing your art to the streets, and you can get paid for it every time this happens. You can get more, and more deeply-connected collectors, collectors can earn a real return on their investment in your art, and consumers get accessible art that they can showcase on their bodies every day.

Take a deeper dive

**What stitched.eth does for Clothing Manufacturers**

In the current antiquated, marketplace, clothing manufacturers are leaving money on the table. There are innumerable artists that are producing incredible, high-powered works that are currently restrained to wallspace. Many of these artists have devoted followers and patrons who would happily line up behind a brand that invests in their artist.

But the transaction costs of incorporating art from these artists has been high. Additionally, collectors have not necessarily seen wearable art as collectible because it lacked provable scaracity, or else it was difficult to tell whether it was authentic.

In solving these problems, stitched.eth empowers manufacturers to capture the value proposition of collectibles and activate the powerful loyalties of art collectors and enthusiasts, increasing a consumer's willingness to pay, and ultimately improving margins.

How does stitched.eth solve these problems?

By embedding artist copyrights into NFTs, manufacturers can acquire high-value exclusive copyright licenses in a trustless and frictionless public marketplace. In the stitched.eth ecosystem, and all you have to do is purchase the copyright-embedded Copyright NFT in order to get an copyright license - and it's a license that comes with no obligations to use it within any specific timeframe and is freely tradeable at any time in the future on any standard NFT marketplace.

Each time the artwork is used on a garment, the use is registered on the blockchain on our own decentralized, public registry. That way, everyone can trustlessly and transparently prove the scarcity of any particular artwork.

In addition, stitched.eth can guarantee the authenticity of physical garments through the blockchain through the production of garment-level "Garment NFTs." These NFTs can be delivered to the person who purchased the specific garment and will be registered on our public, decentralized registry as well. These Garment NFTs and combined with the public registry create a digital certificate of authenticity that cannot be replicated. And all of this is done transparently so that anyone in the world can recognize and prove that any particular garment is the "real deal."

**What stitched.eth does for everyone**

We all wear clothes. And right now we're doing it all wrong.

We buy art from talented artists and hang it up in private places, while every day we walk around promoting clothing brands (that really don't need free advertising) on our bodies.

We love art, but we cut the artists right out of the best advertising opportunity imaginable. Why is it that the best contemporary artists are not featured by the best clothing brands?

stitched.eth uses web3 technology to create an ecosystem where clothing brands, retailers, and art collectors can trade copyright-protected artworks. The stitched.eth ecosystem guarantees real equity for artists, and for everyone else out there - it incentivizes manufacturers to produce clothing featuring your favorite artists so that you can wear your artist as a brand.

In the current, traiditonal ecosystem, clothes featuring art were seen as commodity - they were not collecitble because they were not scarce or easily proved to be authentic.

In the stitched.eth ecosystem, each time artwork is used on a garment, the garment is registered on the blockchain on our own decentralized, public registry. That way, everyone can trustlessly and transparently prove the scarcity of any particular artwork.