MNTGE Introduces Token-Enabled Vintage Jeans With ‘Fruits & Vegetables’ Drop
MNTGE, a digital fashion business, launched its first access card in December, followed by its first sale of digital garments from designer Sean Wotherspoon in February. But it gets even more physical with this week’s launch of vintage repurposed jeans that connect to NFTs.
MNTGE (pronounced “Mintage”) will release only 100 pairs of vintage Levi’s denim jeans with a pattern embroidered by Sean Wotherspoon for its Fruits & Veggies jeans collection, starting Wednesday. The co-founder of MNTGE has previously designed clothing for Nike and Adidas and owned a leading streetwear boutique.
Each of the 100 total pairs, which come in a variety of sizes, will cost $200 for MNTGE Pass holders or $250 for non-holders after general sales begin tomorrow after the pass holder window closes. The Fruits & Vegetables release marks the opening of the MNTGE Market physical fashion storefront.
MNTGE co-founder Nick Adler, who is also a business associate of musician Snoop Dogg, told Decrypt that the startup is first targeting Web3 natives to develop a core network of collectors. With the release of the first physical apparel, MNTGE is growing with a bigger purpose.” Now that we’ve formed that community,” he says, “we really want it to be something that can be embraced broadly and culturally.”
Wotherspoon’s stance as a vintage connoisseur and tastemaker—someone who knows youth culture and understands that consumers are looking for unique clothing—is cited by Adler. This fits the unique cultural nuances of NFTs and asset ownership, but is also much larger.
“We took a little magic from Sean’s thoughts around Fruits & Vegetables, and he played with it and came up with this denim,” says Adler. “We are very happy to be going. We thought this was something extraordinary, so we focused our entire brand promotion on that.”
Jeans also has an NFT component. Each has an NFC (near field communication) tag stitched under the Levi’s tag, which has the MNTGE logo stitched across the top, which can be scanned with a smartphone. It grants rights to owners of free NFTs minted on the Ethereum Polygon scaling network.
Such NFTs can not only validate MNTGE tools, but also provide special benefits to their holders, such as future perks within the MNTGE ecosystem or partnerships providing token-gated access to events or other privileges. Concert festival partnerships were highlighted by Adler as a potential destination for the company.
“We want you to tour music festivals and pick up playlists.” “We want you to feel as if you have special access or seating,” he explains. “We want artists to think, ‘I’m going to work with MNTGE because they have the future in mind, and their product is more like a brand than merchandise.’”
According to Adler, MNTGE’s future will be digital and tangible, as the company is preparing for its next digital fashion drop with other designers. It also intends to collaborate with well-known Web3 artists to produce compliable patches with its mutable digital styles, and is looking for ways to incorporate NFT-based clothing into major video games.
“We are constantly moving with culture and technology,” said Adler.
