DIGITAL WEARABLE COLLECTION MNTGE LAUNCHES COLLABORATION WITH ARTIST SEAN WOTHERSPOON
Digital wearable collection MNTGE will launch MNTGE + Sean Wotherspoon, a mix of digital wearables that are curated and designed by brand cofounder Wotherspoon, inspired by his own vintage clothing archive, tomorrow, Tuesday, February 7th, at 4:00 p.m. EST.
Every holder of the new collection will mint a special edition, digital 3D MNTGE trunk (Editor’s note: as in the kind we store clothes in), inside of which will be two digital wearables — one of four digital vintage pieces curated by Wotherspoon from his archive, and one of three proprietary ink bottles designed by him. Vintage fans will be able to see, experience, and virtually own one of Wotherspoon’s treasured pieces from his vintage clothing archive, while Web3 fans can experience something truly new and groundbreaking in the digital world.
“Vintage has always been huge for me, but there’s this rack of items I have that are just so special to me. I couldn’t ever use them for a project. I’ve rarely photographed them because, in my eyes, they’re so perfect that a photograph is never going to do it justice. And then we created MNTGE and it was like, ‘This is it, this is how I’m going to be able to represent these items. I can put these in people’s hands digitally, and that just means so much to me,” says Wotherspoon.
From there, it’s all up to the holder as to what they do. The first option is to hold on to both of them, as is. The second option is, after a period of time, they will be able to upload their vintage apparel and their ink NFT to the MNTGE website, where they can press the two into a totally new, and much rarer, NFT. By combining the piece of apparel with the ink bottle, it will render a new, dynamic version of the garment designed by Sean – one that combines the construction and detail of the original with a stunning, nature-inspired animation that could only exist in the virtual world. Whether pressed or retained as original pieces, these digital wearables will eventually be able to be worn by avatars in a range of metaverse games and ecosystems in the future.
Wotherspoon goes on to explain, “The inks were inspired by us wanting to give people the ability to customize these pieces. It’s like with my sneakers. When you buy my shoes, that’s not the end of the road. It’s the beginning of the journey because there is always something more for you to discover. That’s why we did the inks with vintage, because we wanted people to put their spin on it.”
A total of 3,100 trunks will be available, with 1,600 of them going to MNTGE passholders. Of the four garments and three inks, some will be rarer than others. As for the combined NFTs, their rarity will be dictated entirely by the community of holders depending on how many press the two together. As for each of the 3,100 trunks, the garment and the ink bottle inside will remain a mystery until the trunk is opened.
This will be the first collection to drop following MNTGE’s December 2022 brand launch, in which we saw the release of the MNTGE Pass. The brand saw immense demand for the pass, which grants access to exclusive artist collections, entry to a token-gated Discord community, and the opportunity to own authentic curated vintage goods.
Within the first two hours of the limited release, nearly 1,300 passes were sold. On day two of the public raffle, the remaining 110 passes sold out in four minutes. There were over 300,000 entries into the raffle for the 110 passes, and the launch was the #1 trending drop for 24 hours on NFT marketplace OpenSea, and OpenSea’s third most popular drop overall. Currently, MNTGE passes are already above 600 Ethereum of trading volume on the resale market.
“I hope people see MNTGE as us setting a new standard. I really want people to have fun and customize the collection. But the big thing I want to achieve here is for people to look at this and be like, ‘Wow, a new standard has been set. They brought this to that next level.” – Sean Wotherspoon
MNTGE was founded by Wotherspoon, a vintage collector, fashion designer, and founder of Round Two who has been the creative director on projects with Adidas, Nike, Porsche, Asics, Guess, and Vespa; Nick Adler, the cofounder of Stampede Management and Cashmere Agency, business partner to Snoop Dogg, investor and advisor for The Sandbox Game, Yuga Labs, and Non-Fungible Labs; and Brennan Russo, the former head of brand experience at Beyond Meat, and former manager of music and sport collaborations at Adidas.
