Authentique founder interviewed by Jing Meta
INTERVIEW WITH AN EXPERT
This week, Jing Meta sat down with The Ordre Group founder and CEO Simon Lock and Co-Founder Kirsten Anna, to discuss the future of digital verification in luxury and the company’s “Authentique” program, which was recently adopted by French fashion label Patou.
How has Web3’s rise to public prominence accelerated demand for innovation across luxury?
While the initial vision was to develop simple technology where you could point a phone at a product and authenticate it, it has accelerated due to the development of Web3 over the last few years, as well as the ability to use digital identities in the form of NFTs to validate and verify products. So, not only can digital IDs be used for authentication, they can now be used for proof of ownership. This is where we're finding the greatest amount of interest from luxury brands. Luxury brands are on a mission to create digital identities that provide information on transparency, sustainability, and product details, for all their products.
How does Web3 technology differ from other forms of digital verification?
The benefits of a digital ID that arrives as a Web3 NFT rather than just a link to a Web2 mini-site, is that it provides unique individual ownership through a wallet, which can be transferred to the next owner to guarantee authenticity, and it used by a brand to maintain an ongoing relationship with the owner. Also, these old school, Web2 technologies can be a bit clunky. For example, a number of luxury brands have RFID chips embedded in them; but, when you scan them in the UK, they don't work. They only work in Europe. One of the reasons is because there are different consumer data protection laws. One of the beauties of Web3 is that it is global, and the technology is seamless.
How is The Ordre Group responding to recent speculation surrounding Web3 tech?
We don't actually talk about the fact that the digital identities that we create for our Authentique verification feature NFTs, because there's quite a bit of paranoia around NFTs at the moment, driven by speculation around fashion collectibles and digital wearables, which haven't really taken off. While it is a blockchain application, we don't talk about it as such, and the consumers don't want to know about it. No one cares what technology is built on. All they want to know is that they have the digital ID on their phones.
Are any other luxury brands looking to implement The Ordre Group’s “Authentique” feature?
We're fortunate because we work with around 200 luxury brands who use our technology, so our existing clients are the people we take our new developments to. We’re in talks with a number of brands, and we have a big Authentique project with a major luxury label that will be announced around September.
How is digital verification technology like The Ordre Group’s helping tackle counterfeits?
Once a brand starts to generate digital IDs for physical products, those products can always be verified for the rest of their lifetime. What brands want to do now is not only create digitized entities, but also create the resale platforms themselves. Applying this to the resale space, consumers can take their physical products and digital IDs, put them into their dedicated app, and push the “resell” button. Completing the process entirely through the certified platform means it’s guaranteed that they’re buying a real product. We're going to see more brands move into the resale area themselves.
