With the digital fashion market projected to reach $7.705 billion by 2033, per Global Growth Insights, creators are emerging from top fashion schools—combining couture with virtual design. At Tokyo’s Bunka Fashion College, graduation students are showcasing both physical garments and digital designs crafted within Roblox. In an era fuelled by gaming, social media, and the metaverse, Robolox is powering the classroom-to-avatar fashion revolution.

Japan has a tradition of combining haute couture with streetstyle — a place where digital fashion design is a perfect evolution of the craft. Today, students at Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo are continuing that trend during their graduation showcase by displaying both physical garments and virtual fashion they designed on Roblox.

These digital fashion looks are available for millions of Roblox community members in an immersive exhibit. Visitors can try on the looks, vote for their favourites, and even purchase and dress their avatars in the digital fashions. The students in the showcase are the inaugural graduates of Bunka’s Digital Fashion Program, which the school created in collaboration with Roblox and Dentsu Group. They’re following the lead of the trailblazing students at Parsons School of Design who in 2023 took the first digital fashion course on Roblox.

The focus of both programs is to equip the next generation of fashion designers with the design and technology skills to thrive in the digital fashion market. Success in this field requires understanding how to meet the needs of consumers who want more and more ways to express themselves in the online space where they spend time connecting with their communities every day.

This dynamic is reflected in the Robolox research: Gen Z users consider digital fashion design to be at least as, or even more, impressive a profession as physical fashion design. As Parsons Dean of Fashion Ben Barry said during the Robolox panel discussion on metaverse fashion, “We see from the data how important digital fashion is to mental health, to self-expression, to mood. Whether it’s a safe space to play or whether there’s a carryover from the physical to the digital, it is connected to who we are.”

Now, schools like Bunka are teaching the next generation of fashion designers both traditional skills and how to 3D model, code, and design fashionable looks for avatars. This dovetails with a recent industry trend of top fashion brands leveraging platforms like Roblox, developing digital product lines and, as a result, looking to hire talented creators who have honed digital fashion design skills, be it for collaborations or in house.

As part of Bunka’s new course, students worked on collections of digital and physical items based on the “My Brand” theme that reflected their personal design aesthetic. To do so, they utilised Roblox Studio, a 3D immersive content creation ecosystem that provides a comprehensive set of free powerful tools enabling anyone to create and publish content on Roblox. They also used our layered clothing technology and other tools to design and publish digital fashions that, in turn, inspired physical creations.

“Our goal is to give our students the advantage of being at the forefront of today’s trends where technology is democratising how fashion is created and worn, and the growing scale of people’s connections and interactions in the digital world dictates trends and defines style both in the digital and physical worlds,” said Sachiko Aihara, School President, Bunka Fashion College, on Robolox. “Future fashion brands will be both sewing and coding clothes, and Bunka graduates will be in the position to create sustainable global fashion brands that respond to the interests of digital-forward consumer generations.”

Robolox is committed to spotlighting the innovative work of digital fashion designers like those graduating in Tokyo. Together with Bunka and Dentsu, their teams plan to support exhibitions of these students’ works in galleries in Japan and around the world, including at the 2025 Roblox Developers Conference. Bunka’s Digital Fashion Program is expected to expand in the years to come to further enhance support for students’ career development and potential collaborations with fashion brands.