Victor Weinsanto may send his brand’s notoriety into the stratosphere together with his latest project: A digital collection for South Korean girl group Lightsum that may drop as NFTs next month.

The French designer recently traveled to Los Angeles for K-Con, a three-day festival of South Korean culture, with Lightsum among the many headline acts. Organizers said greater than 90,000 people attended the convention and concert events.

“I’ve never heard screams like that,” Weinsanto said, marveling at the dimensions of the concert crowds and their enthusiasm. “You possibly can really see K-pop fans are hysterical, in way.”

Weinsanto also highlighted the recognition of K-pop music in France, noting that print magazine K-World! — dedicated to Korean popular culture — sells about 45,000 copies a month.

Having honed his skills on the elbow of couturier Jean Paul Gaultier, Weinsanto said it was a recent adventure to conjure metaverse-ready fashions that aren’t limited by fabric capabilities, weight and gravity.

Nevertheless, he opted to design looks for the band members that reflected their personal style, while nudging them out of their comfort zones together with his cabaret-inspired designs. “I desired to create something they might see themselves wearing in real life.”

Lightsum consists of eight members from ages 15 to 19: Sangah, Chowon, Nayoung, Hina, Juhyeon, Yujeong, Huiyeon and Jian.

Formed by Cube Entertainment, Lightsum released its first single, “Vanilla,” in June 2021, with the video racking up greater than 20 million views on YouTube. 

The music has a saccharine flavor, with video images of candy-sprinkled ice cream cones and lyrics including “my heart is sort of a rainbow.”

Weinsanto said he got swept away with their Los Angeles, California, performance. “I used to be like a fan girl,” he confessed. “I used to be impressed by how skilled they’re for his or her age.…A number of the girls were quite shy, but not once they hit the stage.” 

For his or her group photo, he dressed all eight members in Weinsanto, mixing up looks from his first three collections.

Weinsanto’s partner within the enterprise is BNV, an acronym for Brand Latest Vision, a Hong Kong-based start-up that bills itself as a fashion-centric metaverse destination for 3D product creation, tokenization, community constructing and interoperable wearability.

“We wish to demystify the entire thing,” said BNV founder Richard Hobbs, acknowledging that many Web3 newbies find daunting the prospect of shopping for crypto currency, getting a digital wallet and wading into the burgeoning world of digital collectibles. “We see BNV as a stepping stone to the economy of fashion within the metaverse.”

Hobbs said BNV’s aim is to create fashion experiences within the metaverse which might be immersive, interactive and accessible. Lightsum’s is dubbed “M3taLove.”

The platform is constructing a music-festival style environment within the kind of Buckminster Fuller, the American architect prized for his futuristic geodesic domes.

Hobbs said BNV has a “metaverse tailoring team” creating the 3D versions of Weinsanto’s sketches. “It becomes literally a chunk of art,” he said.

The project might be displayed as holograms on Sept. 26 at cultural space 3537 in Paris, where the designer will unveil his spring 2023 collection, and host a sprawling party.