Luxury fashion brand Alyx announces IOTA-based distributed ledger pilot scheme aimed at improving supply chain transparency.

Luxury fashion brand Alyx has announced it will be running an IOTA-based pilot aimed at improving supply chain transparency.

Founded by Matthew Williams, who shot to fame as Lady Gaga’s creative director and a Kanye West collaborator, Alyx is launching the blockchain pilot in partnership with manufacturer Avery Dennison and London-based internet of things (IoT) software developer Evrythng.

Vogue Business reported the news on 24^th June, which confirms previous reports suggesting a potential partnership between Alyx and IOTA.

IOTA, an IoT-focused distributed ledger technology firm, has created “Tangle” – an architecture that, unlike blockchain, is based on a directed acyclic graph (DAG), rather than “blocks” or mining. In this system, different types of transactions are run on different chains in the network at the same time.

The pilot project will involve nine Alyx pieces, each of which will feature a scannable QR code that will give access to the complete supply chain of the particular product. This will include the source of its raw materials, the place of manufacturer, and all shipping.

Evrythng uploads and stores all the information onto the ledger, while Avery Dennison creates a digital ID tag for each garment.

Though such a system can be potentially very complex, and it absolutely depends on individuals at every point of the supply chain entering accurate information, in Alyx’s case it will be made simpler by the fact that the business is only 4 years old and 80% of its garments are produced by Italian suppliers who’ve already committed to transparency.

A similar blockchain-powered platform, designed to allow customers to verify the authenticity of goods, was announced by French multinational luxury goods conglomerate LVMH and Microsoft last month.

AYO.NEWS says:

While this kind of system is very interesting, and seems practical for high-end goods with large margins and established, vetted suppliers, it seems unlikely to be useful for the majority of mainstream brands.

Although, as Vogue Business notes, off-the-shelf providers can make blockchain tagging technology available to many smaller or more cash-pressed businesses, we would say that ever-changing suppliers, and lack of oversight in production and supply facilities, would mean the veracity of date input at the various stages would be highly questionable.   

After all, will a factory worker earning $3 a day in Laos really care that much about entering accurate information? Or, if a factory boss in China decides to enter fake info, will the retailer in Europe or America have any way of knowing? With all the new tech out there, sometimes its easy to forget the human factor can still be a weak point!

AYO.NEWS says features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.