Luxury styling game firm DREST has appointed Lisa Bridgett as Chief Executive in a bid to develop the company’s management team and advance its expansion, it announced on Friday as seen by XR Today.
Bridgett has formerly worked for massive brands such as Accenture, Ralph Lauren, Net-A-Porter, and Universal Music, and holds extensive experience in eCommerce, digital, and technological solutions.
Lucy Yeomans, Founder and Creator for DREST, will step in as Co-Chairman and Chief Brand and Product Officer to build her firm’s partnerships, creative development, and product lineup.
The former Net-A-Porter and Harper’s Bazaar exec will join Graham Edwards, Co-Chairman and Invester, to expand solutions aimed at creating future Metaverse technologies.
The news comes as the luxury and lifestyle firm saw a record 250 percent year-on-year growth and is set to accelerate further this year, namely as it shifts to developing the Metaverse with its gaming solutions.
DREST’s Quest for the Metaverse
The gaming industry has arguably driven much of the development in the Metaverse, and DREST has seen its exponential growth as a result of its own technologies, which target sectors in travel, beauty, fashion, and entertainment, among others.
Ready for your next styling brief on #DREST? Head to the link in bio to style with more than 200 luxury brands and up your fashion credentials ⭐.
> > https://t.co/g2bjHx9joA pic.twitter.com/T4V8GpudLw
— DREST (@DRESTstyle) February 6, 2022
The London-based firm has combined several technologies, including avatar development, gamification, e-commerce, advertising, marketing, and data analysis to develop solutions aimed at styling, content creation, and rendering to transform the global fashion and beauty industries.
DREST has collaborated with over 250 luxury brands such as Prada, Off-White, Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Cariter, Burberry, Stella McCartney, Loewe, and Chloé, in partnership with Farfetch, to build bespoke shopping experiences which merge the real and virtual to empower its customers and partner firms.
The firm has also developed numerous avatars for some of the industry’s top supermodels such as Irina Shayk, Natalia Vodianova, Imaan Hamman, Precious Lee, and Candice Huffine.
DREST has also boosted its outreach with charities and global movements with its world-renowned portfolio of supermodels to jointly match revenues at roughly 50 percent.
Company Statements on Future of Metaverse Modelling
Yeomans explained that DREST had reached an “exciting moment” in its trajectory and was “setting up all elements” of its business for long-term success.
She continued, noting,
“Smart leaders and founders play to their strengths, which for me involves taking ownership of our product, brand and partnerships in a deeper and more focused way. When it came to appointing our CEO, Lisa was the natural choice. She is an inspiring and impressive global business leader, having achieved success with her dynamic digital competence across the industries of music, fashion and gaming”
Yeomans concluded that women consisted of roughly 62 percent of mobile gamers globally, but were only 16 percent of all high-level positions. The dual appointment of female executives aimed to ‘challenge the status quo’ and set new trends in the industry, she said.
Bridgett added she was “elated” to develop the company along with Yeomens, where she would focus on “scaling DREST through our developer ecosystem, marketing channels and strategic revenue streams” as the company’s revenues and user base continued to expand.
The comments comes as IT consultancy giant Accenture launched a Women Founders Programme to promote and support female entrepreneurs in India, following a shocking survey which found a massive gap in gender equality among the subcontinent’s top firms and investors.
DREST for (Metaverse) Success?
DREST’s entrance into the Metaverse comes amid a massive push to support the industry, with companies across the technology sector bidding for significant market shares as it develops.
Following Facebook’s rebrand to Meta Platforms, Inc in October last year, the tech industry has seen a huge shift to developing Metaverse platforms, with massive tech giants such as NVIDIA, Meta, Microsoft, Varjo, HTC, Unity, Epic Games, Nextech AR, and others leading the trajectory of the market.
Meta, has muscled much of its resources to develop its Horizon product lineup of Metaverse platforms, ReSkin haptic gloves, avatar and face tracking skills, its SparkAR software development kits (SDK), as well as future plans to open a Research SuperCluster artificial intelligence (AI) centre.
Microsoft is set to reach the third spot for global gaming firms after it announced it would acquire Activision Blizzard, leading to the creation of future Metaverse and cloud computing technologies.
The anticipated buyout not only aims to expand Microsoft’s catalogue of gaming titles, but technologies across its solutions such as Mesh, Teams, OneDrive, its HoloLens product lineup, and many others.
XR solutions firm Varjo Technologies spoke to XR Today about its Reality Cloud solution, which will lead to the future creation of the Metaverse with its world-first collaborative cloud platform for enterprises, allowing firms to stream, design, edit, and share projects in real-time, from any location.
