Variable on SME Fashion Industry With NFT Blockchain as the Design Protection and Counterfeiting Measurement Using Narrative Analysis

NFT development, backed by blockchain technology, is still in motion and ongoing though the hype has cooled off along with the advance of the technology. With the advancement of technology, fashion is also one thing that gets affected. Fashion, one of the human necessities, has given many business opportunities, with the SME fashion industry having a big part in it. With their limited budget, sadly, they didn't have many options to handle some of the biggest challenges in the fashion industry, which poached design and counterfeiting. Fortunately, NFT has given some solutions that could help cope with those problems. The NFT with blockchain technology could be used to protect how it works by making a unique signature to the digitized asset it is associated with. Real physical goods could be linked to the digitized version with NFT technology for recognition and protective purpose. It will help prove the digital goods' ownership and the linked physical ones. This paper sought to find out what variables affect the fashion SME industry with the NFT as the design protection and counterfeit measurement by using the qualitative narrative analysis from the data gathered using the conducted storytelling interview. The variable will then be compared with the previous study's findings for further analysis and results.

I. Introduction

NFT buzz has been coming down nowadays, but the search for further utilization of NFT with the backing of blockchain technology still continues. Example of the expanding ongoing research for NFT application is like Crowdfunding with NFT to gain funding and financial support for their initiatives [1], using NFT as a token for digital assets [2], or using NFT for perceived collectible items [3]. Somehow NFT in the fashion industry is something that doesn’t make sense but looks promising for business. In some cases, people interest and may spend millions of dollars to buy digital assets [4]. The success of NFTs is reflected in several leading brands such as Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana, Givenchy, and Nike [5]. Those leading brands are seizing the opportunity to capitalize on the thriving NFT space. Much of the research shows promises of the usefulness of potential benefits from NFT or the blockchain technology behind it. See from another perspective, this research tries to study one of the untapped potentials of the NFT, specifically using NFT as a security variable for fashion design, a case study on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) shirts and fashion in urban areas.