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Once worn solely for sport, sneakers and the surrounding culture has grown into a global phenomenon, with sneakerheads spending billions of dollars a year on the latest releases. Today, sneakers are more than just a fashion item – they are a reflection of our personal style, status, and values.
As such, the global sneaker market is expected to reach $196 billion by 2030. Add in the rise of digital fashion and Web3, and this number will only continue to balloon.
Kojiro Hirate and the Joyfa team are betting the house on it.
Joyfa is an NFT-powered ecosystem that enables anyone to create and experience digital sneakers. With over four years of blockchain experience prior to Joyfa, Hirate cut his teeth as a Business Development Lead at Enjin, a Japanese blockchain gaming and entertainment company. After noticing an uptick in demand for in-game assets, specifically skins and cosmetics, it became quickly apparent that fashion was the next logical use case for NFTs.
From there, Hirate enrolled in a fashion school in Japan and began to craft the vision for Joyfa.
Initially, Joyfa operated in a similar model to DressX, working with high-profile designers and celebrities to create, sell and outfit users with digital garments. After experimenting with this approach, Hirate was shocked to find how time and capital-intensive the underlying technical infrastructure of digital dressing could be.
Seeking a pivot, Joyfa turned its attention toward sneakers. An avid sneaker enthusiast himself, Hirate recognized sneakers as the perfect bridge between the digital and physical worlds. Using augmented reality, sneaker enthusiasts could collect, display, and wear their digital sneakers in real time.
With that, the Joyfa Studio was born. In the Joyfa Studio, anyone can design their own digital sneaker, no artistic talent required. Similar to Nike ID, users can design their own Freedom NFT sneakers by pasting their favorite NFT artwork onto a blank digital sneaker and minting it as a separate NFT on the Polygon network. From there, users can buy, sell, trade, and wear their digital sneakers.
Since the launch of the Studio on August 1st, 2022, Joyfa has onboarded an extensive roster of supporting projects, including CryptoPunks, Bored Ape & Mutant Ape Yacht Club, World of Women, and Azuki, generating over 1,000 sneaker NFTs to date.
And this is only the beginning.
In May 2022, Joyfa announced the raise of a pre-seed round to fuel their next stage of growth, along with the release of their second in-house collection, Genso. Inspired by Greek philosophy and the theory of famous scientist Empedocles, the collection features four unique NFT sneakers of which Blue Steps 1 is the first. Limited to a supply of 30, each NFT is accompanied by the 3D source files and the ability to digitally display and wear the sneaker in Joyfa’s upcoming AR app.
Key Joyfa Partnerships
In addition to the studio, the company has emerged as a key collaborator with top Web 2.0 and Web3 fashion collectives like Red DAO to create beautiful one-of-one creations that transcend the design limitations of the physical world.
The end goal? Partner with top fashion houses to bring the magic of digital sneakers to the masses.
But first, Joyfa is steadfast in building strong partnerships within the sneaker community.
“On the consumer side, we’re really focused on building relationships with sneaker enthusiasts who live within each of our partnering NFT communities. For example, within Azuki there is a subset of sneaker collectors who we are actively seeking to build relationships with,” Joyfa’s Head of Communications, Julia Puckett said in an exclusive interview with Digital Fashion Daily. “With our business collaborations, we seek out partners who can benefit from bridging their culture and community into Web3.”
The Future of AR and Joyfa
While Joyfa’s studio and AR app are currently live-in-browser, Hirate is most excited about the advancements in wearable AR technology.
“I find AR glasses really exciting, and believe it will change everything,” he said in an interview. “While the wearing experience of digital sneakers is now limited to smartphones or browsers, AR glasses will unlock the true potential of digital sneakers, and digital fashion as a whole.”
With the rapid advancements of artificial intelligence, the potential for creativity is limitless.
“We are actively looking at integrating Stable Diffusion into the Joyfa Studio. Pasting your NFTs onto a sneaker is one thing, but customizing your sneakers using an image generated by Stable Diffusion will change the game.”