Who wouldn't want to do some digital shopping with fantastic deals and bargains? Thanks to the internet, it is now incredibly simple for buyers worldwide to shop online hassle-free. Similar offers are now accessible to those who aim to get their hands on one of the most sought-after fashion brand's items, made possible by the MetaBirkins project.

The MetaBirkins is a project that is part of the release of NFT Baby Birkin by American artist Mason Rothschild, which depicts an animated baby growing inside Hermès virtual handbags.

Hermès' Birkin bags are quickly becoming the poster child for the growing — and illegitimate — exploitation of brands' valued assets in the metaverse. The French luxury goods house issued a statement last month, claiming that it did not authorize or consent to Rothschild's 100 virtual Birkin bag-inspired NFTs.

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by MetaBirkins (@metabirkins)

NFT is an abbreviation for "non-fungible token," which Collins Dictionary defines as "a unique digital certificate, registered on a blockchain, that is used to record the ownership of an object such as an artwork or a collectible". Essentially, this means that anyone can buy and sell the 'metadata' connected with a specific image in the same way that you would a painting or a physical Hermès Birkin.

Mason Rothschild's MetaBirkins NFT collection on OpenSea comprises faux fur and colorful Birkin handbag versions. Rothschild's second Birkin-inspired collection is MetaBirkins. The former collection, Baby Birkins, was produced in collaboration with Eric Ramirez and featured a play on the Birkin handbag.

The revamped Hermès collection has "one-of-a-kind modern colors and graphic implementations". Inspired by the growing interest in fur alternatives, the artist said he created the collection to demonstrate to other firms and designers that adhering to cruelty-free design techniques and preserving one's particular artistic vision are not mutually exclusive.

Copyright issues

An actual Birkin handbag can cost anywhere between $9,000 (Rp 129,303,900) and $500,000 (Rp 7,183,550,000) — or more. Sotheby's auction house published a list of the top six most expensive Hermès Birkin Bags in 2012. The "Sac Bijou Birkin", a diamond-encrusted handbag, went for $2 million (about Rp 28,73 billion).

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Hermès (@hermes)

Hermès, on the other hand, claimed Rothschild was stealing its designs and violating the company's trademark.

"Hermès did not authorize nor consent to the commercialization or creation of our Birkin bag by Mason Rothschild in the metaverse," a Hermès spokesperson told the Financial Times, which broke the story on December 10.

"These NFTs infringe upon the intellectual property and trademark rights of Hermès and are an example of fake Hermès products in the metaverse."

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by MetaBirkins (@metabirkins)

Twists after twists

In a surprising turn of events, upon realizing that his ideas were being duplicated and sold by scammers, Rothschild made a similar complaint in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live.

"Before my collection dropped, there was a bunch of, like, counterfeit NFTs that weren't from my collection," Rothschild said. "But we had, like, $35,000, $40,000 (Rp 502,824,000, Rp 574,656,000) in volume of people buying fake versions of my MetaBirkin."

According to Hermès, the problem with MetaBirkins is that it may confuse customers and lead them to believe that MetaBirkins is an official Hermès product when it is not. Then there's the issue of money. OpenSea stated that the MetaBirkins collection had earned 230 ETH (about Rp 12.61 billion), or equal to about 100 Birkin handbags. Hermès will never see any of the money unless it goes to court.

Although not Hermès-approved, the MetaBirkin is the most recent in a lengthy line of high-end fashion NFT debuts. Coach, for instance, has just launched its first collection of NFTs as part of a holiday campaign. Gucci stated earlier this year that it's "only a matter of time" before other luxury brands release their own after the Italian brand released its first NFT as part of a newly-unveiled Christie's auction.