Marjorie Hernandez honors Karl Lagerfeld, looks ahead at the future of Web3

Marjorie Hernandez is a futurist and entrepreneur focused on blockchain design and technology. She is a co-founder of the first Web3 digital fashion marketplace, The Dematerialised, and LUKSO, an Ethereum-based blockchain for the new creative economy.

Marjorie’s companies have shared Karl Lagerfeld's first NFT and have now partnered with the Karl Lagerfeld brand on a new initiative she’ll share at the Met Gala.

We talk about Marjorie’s relationship with the Karl Lagerfeld brand, the use cases for blockchain technology in the creative and fashion industries, and how brands need to be prepared for the future.

Find Marjorie online at https://www.marjoriehernandez.com and on Instagram @m_h_d_v.

Check out her work at LUKSO and The Dematerialised.

About Umindi

Umindi Francis is the CEO and founder of the award-winning global brand consulting firm UFCG. She has led strategy and marketing for some of the world's leading brands, such as Louis Vuitton, Bottega Veneta, and Bumble. Over the years, she has worked with celebrities and numerous brands, ranging from The New York Times to the United States Institute of Peace, as a business strategy adviser. Umindi has been featured in a number of publications, including Time, New York, and Vogue, and is the recipient of a United States Congressional Recognition for Business Achievement.

Follow Umindi on Instagram @Umindi360 and on Linkedin here. Follow the podcast on Instagram @whatsnextwithumindi.

Creators & Guests

Host

Umindi Francis

Founder and CEO of UFCG, a global brand consulting firm

What is What's Next Podcast with Umindi Francis?

What’s Next Podcast with Umindi Francis is a new podcast that explores perspectives from executives, creatives, and thought leaders at the intersection of business, marketing, and strategy in technology, fashion, entertainment, and more.

Umindi Francis leverages 20 years of business strategy experience and relationships as an entrepreneur, and executive for some of the world’s leading brands, to discuss insights, and the next frontier of business, from the people that move their industries forward. The podcast also highlights their path to success to deeper understand their journey.

Listeners will gain insights into how our guests drive innovation. They will also walk away from each episode encouraged and inspired to tackle their own professional goals in business. As a result of Umindi’s connections, listeners can expect marquee guests each episode.

Marjorie Hernandez: Because there's no one central authority telling you what's up and what you're supposed to do. This is like, everybody decides what's the best way and all of a sudden, like-minded people come together and start moving in that direction.

So yeah. And of course, open the gates for a lot of scams and speculators and strange businesses and all of that. regulators need to catch up. lawmakers need to catch up. Lawyers need to get educated. Like so many things need to happen.

Umindi Francis: This is What's Next Podcast with Umindi Francis. We're talking tech, blockchain, Web3, and what's next? Let's go.

Marjorie Hernandez is a futurist and entrepreneur fusing the ever-evolving worlds of blockchain design and technology. As co-founder of the first Web3 digital fashion marketplace, the Dematerialised and LUKSO, an Ethereum based blockchain for the new creative economy.

Marjorie remained at the forefront of creating forward-thinking innovative solutions for creative industries around the world that seamlessly integrates into our increasingly growing digital world. She's been recognized as one of Vogue business's top 100 innovators, and her insights are regularly featured in Bloomberg, the business of fashion wired, Forbes Women's Wear Daily, High Sobriety, and more.

Welcome, Marjorie. Thank you, Umindi. Wow. It's so good to see you. So good to see you too, too. Welcome to New York.

Marjorie Hernandez: I feel very welcome at the moment. Thanks.

Umindi Francis: Tell our listeners where you're traveling from,

Marjorie Hernandez: From Berlin. All the way from Berlin. All the way from Berlin where I actually live regardless. We actually live, I live there.

Umindi Francis: Hard to believe you stopped by to talk to us on the podcast.

Marjorie Hernandez: You're on the top of my list every time I come to New York, so yeah.

Umindi Francis: I know. It's really great to see you and I'm so thrilled to sit and talk to you about one of them. My most exciting topics, Web3. Yes, and you are for sure a foremost authority.

So let's get into it.

Marjorie Hernandez: Let's do it. Let's do it.

Umindi Francis: So in 2019, you published a 146 page white paper, which outlined a new blueprint for the creative industry with a special focus on blockchain for the fashion and lifestyle industries. Many of the ideas you mentioned have come to fruition today. Let's go back to what you were seeing in the creative economy at that time that inspired you to write this think piece.

Marjorie Hernandez: Yeah, that's awesome. And it's so interesting to look back on the amount of time that we invested. Working on this paper. So we first had the idea for a lock. So in 2017, we were very deep in the blockchain world. My co-founder was working at Ethereum. He was part of the Ethereum Foundation, and I was an innovation consultant at that point in time.

And we decided after a trip to Japan to listen to this thing that we thought was very small and niche called blockchain technology is gonna take over the world and we should be even more active than we are now. And Fabian and I, we met when we were both students in the science school and our passion has always been the creator economy.

And all of a sudden we identified there's this amazing technology that is gonna like really change and change the rules of the game that we had so far in the creative industries and really challenge that power dynamic that we had between, you know, the brands and the manufacturers, and the consumers and the users, and really redefine how the creator economy works.

So we decided to put those ideas into a paper. I invested nine months writing it. We counted with the help of a very intelligent young man called Stefan [unclear]. And yeah, we worked really long on it and at the beginning we were like, oh, we are gonna do like 30 pages and like la la la very easygoing. We didn't want to make a tech paper.

We wanted to make it almost like a social cultural paper that explores how this technology is gonna impact this economy and all of the possibilities that are opening. So we went ahead and did that, kind of like explore 10 different use cases or a bit more than that. Maybe we went for 12 at the end. and, you know, focusing on fashion and art and kind of like how the creator is gonna become empowered and, and really own their IP and really have an ability to enter the market.

That was never possible before. So yeah, we did that. And then, we were having a bit of performance anxiety that we were like not publishing the thing. And then, we ended up publishing at the beginning of 2019 and it was very well received. People really, people really liked it and yeah.

Umindi Francis: That has to be an exhilarating feeling.

Yeah. And thank you for putting that out into the world. Thank you. You know, I mean, it's inspired so many. Thank you. And so much, as I said, of what you guys wrote in that paper has come to fruition. Yeah, and I definitely wanna get back to that. But yes, before we go too deep into that, I want you to tell us about your journey.

Yeah. And what led you to this place? Like where did you start professionally? Tell us your story.

Marjorie Hernandez: Oof. Okay. It's a very long story. How much time do we have? We have time. Let's go. Well, I'm, I'm really from Caracas, Venezuela. You and I share that we both have our roots in the most beautiful part of the world, which is the Caribbean, Trinidad.

Yes. And yeah, I study architecture in Caracas and I started college in 2003 and you know, the country was going through this massive socio-political transformation. So at the end of my degree, I moved to Germany to do a second masters in media art and design. And I did that. And as much as I love architecture, I think it's a beautiful kind of discipline and has this beautiful, conflict dynamic between the left brain.

Right brain is very technical and very creative simultaneously. I was like, I don't wanna be an architect anymore. I don't think that's what I wanna do. So I started exploring what I can do with all of this knowledge that I have and all the skills that I learned.

So I had a very interesting career path in which I did some brand strategy. I was freelancing for all different kinds of agencies in Germany and Switzerland. I was working for artists in Berlin and then eventually I was hired at Sung Young and I was asked to help them build an innovation lab for the German speaking region. Yes. And I was like, sure I can do that.

and, and then we started working on that project and part of like, kind of like a hobby was we were very into blockchain technology like since 2013. It was a passion of mine. You know, Venezuela is a very wealthy, very beautiful country with highly problematic institutions and governments, they're very corrupt. And all of a sudden these technological propositions seem very, very exciting for me, especially thinking back as a kid, how I will go with my mom to the bank and arrive and the bank didn't exist anymore.

Wow. And like all of the small moments as a child, it makes you naturally distrust institutions. Mm-hmm. And you know, I think, you know, in like first world countries, people don't-- you know, more recently, yes-- but, you know, historically people had the luxury of maybe, you know, trusting institutions a little bit more and trusting their governments a little bit more.

Just things we take for granted. Totally. And it's really nice when it works, you know? But, this, you know, we, we really exist in a space that, that, that that level of comfort and. It's, it's really, it's so fragile. Mm-hmm. You know, we are really trusting heavily on the systems working for us and not becoming corrupted.

And, you know, what we experience historically in Latin America, and especially most recently in Venezuela, is that when this happens, it's, it's disastrous, right. Yes. In like rules of the thread of society.

Absolutely. And then, you know, for me it was very, very interesting from that personal perspective. So eventually around 2015, both things came together, kind of like my passion for blockchain technology and my professional life started becoming one.

Umindi Francis: And that was great. But, I wanna go back to it, since it's so relevant right now. Yeah. Our trust in our banking system. Yeah. And, and, and, politics and our government and so forth. And so what is the unique, you know, proposition that decentralization offers?

Marjorie Hernandez: I think it's just a progression in terms of trust.

You know, we have trusted, you know, like our peer group, then we trusted the church, then, you know, institutions, the government, and then we are transitioning to trusting technology and, you know, the world is becoming smaller. Mm-hmm. And, you know, like, geopolitical boundaries don't necessarily apply anymore in many, many ways, even though we still live in that system.

I think decentralization and decentralized leisure technologies is just allowing us to have a system in which we can agree what is the current version of the truth. Okay? We can agree on what current is considered right and at all times. And that version we can all agree independently of where we are.

If I'm in Venezuela or in Berlin, in New York or in Trinidad, that ledger is immutable. And that version of the truth is, is, is what is so appealing and obviously allows us to transact with each other in a way that is not depending on a bank or a specific institution or a payment provider or anything like that.

And you know, the beautiful thing about all of this stuff around smart contract and, what Ethereum brought to the table in terms of, blockchain technology is that it's not only about transacting, currency, but it's also transacting any kind of products, right, that you can tokenize and that in the world that we know is gonna become more and more digital and we're gonna spend more time together in the virtual and digital environments, then all of a sudden we can transact with those products.

Right? And if you are a young woman in, you know, in South Africa or Venezuela or Brazil, you can enter the market, right? Not necessarily you need to be in one of those top. Capitals of the world so you can participate in the greater economy. All of a sudden we have a technology that allows us for technologies to always allow us for. That it takes something that used to be scarce and now it's abundant. So we'll allow creators around the world to enter the market directly. And that's freaking exciting. I know.

Umindi Francis: Well said. Thanks for sharing that. Thank you. So going back to your journey, we were at 2015, Ernst & Young Innovation Lab.

Marjorie Hernandez: Yes.

Yes. And yeah, so it was around 2015. We were really into, you know, Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts, what's gonna happen, what's gonna bring, and in Ernst & Young, we got to do really interesting stuff very, very early. my former boss, which is one, of LUKSO's advisors, you know, he really allow us to, especially me to like, at the very early stage, explore what, what blockchain will mean for so many companies in like the German and, and like German speaking, kind of like economy in Europe.

And yeah, we did very interesting use cases from automotive and pharmaceutical and really explored all of these issues around counterfeiting and like making sure that, you know, counterfeiting is massive in pharmaceuticals. So we did a lot of interesting stuff and like, you know, like, a car that will have an integrated wallet that will allow it for the car to pay for its own repairs.

And once we have autonomous driving, like that car can drive a LA around and transact and all of those different things. So we did that and it was an amazing experience and I eventually, my wonderful lo boss left Ernst & Young and, I, I, I decided that this is also a great time for me to like, go ahead and leave the comfort of, of my job and go into a new challenge of building something that is a hundred percent our vision and, you know, really put something out in the world that, that.

They really sync, like it's in sync with our, with our values. And you know, like I'm Venezuela, my co-founder was born in former East Germany. So we have, you know, there's a, there's a component of like the experience that we have had in the world, that we have in the world growing up. Like he going through, you know, the fall of the Berlin wall and all of these different transformations and then we realizing like this is a massive time in history in which we can put out there something that we truly believe on that we're proud of, and hopefully creating tools that are open source and like useful for creators all over the world.

And then they can make money and like to transact and have fun and build the future. So it was amazing what we wanted to do.

Umindi Francis: Awesome. Awesome. So let's talk in depth about the two companies that you've co-founded today. Yes. LUKSO and The Dematerialised. Walk us through how you came to start these two companies.

Marjorie Hernandez: Yeah, so as I said, you know, LUKSO, we started in 2017 and it is a massive task that Fabian and I took upon us.

And you know, the goal with LUKSO is to be, if it's on a blockchain network. Is, you know, kind of like a sister chain to Ethere is how we see it. and is catering a kind of build with the, with the purpose of fulfilling the needs of that creator kind of group of people. And in order to do that, we are proposing an array of smart contract standards and different tools that require creators to actually use the blockchain, right?

Because, one of the reasons why I think people get so kind of confused or intimidated about this whole thing with blockchain is that you, you don't see it, you don't know how to use it, you don't know where to start, right? It's like a very almost esoteric concept sometimes.

And you know, what we are doing is pretty much like creating all of those tools. They are required to make it factual. Like this is what you have to do.

Umindi Francis: So since some of our listeners might not be into this space or understand this space, of course they've heard of it. Yeah. What does Ethereum mean to, you know, Web3 in the blockchain?

Yeah. What is, what is a blockchain? What, you know, just give us a little ground. Amazing. Before we continue through that.

Marjorie Hernandez: I really hope that my tech team doesn't listen to this podcast because they will be like, Marjorie, what are you saying? No, but I'm, I'm gonna, and I, I, I will say, this is the way I interpret it for myself as, as a person who, you know, I am able to liaise with my tech team, but I'm myself not the person who is building any of these things.

In layman terms. Yeah. Let's go.

so, the way I like to see blockchains, I think this is the easiest way to put it. It's like all of us who were born in the eighties, we remember a time where we downloaded content out of the internet, potentially illegally via things like BitTorrent and BitTorrent was the reason why we could download. It was a peer-to-peer network.

And we all experienced that moment when you are trying to download a piece, but it's not finished because that person who has a piece is not online. So that was a peer-to-peer network, just like blockchain technologies. the beautiful thing about blockchain technologies, you have to imagine it is a peer-to-peer network, just like BitTorrent, with the fact that on top of it have solved a problem that existed in the world of cryptography, unaware to most of us, that is the double spending issue.

There is a fact, if you, Umindi says Marjorie, I love your jacket. I wanna buy it. I will send you this hundred digital dollars. In a decentralized network technology, how do we make sure, or any, any network that the hundred dollars that you sent me have actually been spent because they're digital, right? Not normally. If I send you a picture, I can send it to you, I can send it to Josiah, I can send it to Sarah multiple, multiple times. But in the case of value and assets, those assets actually need to be spended and that's what they solved.

All of a sudden, they find a way that if you send me the hundred dollars, those hundred dollars that you send me are unique and you don't have them anymore.

And that's what they solved. Sounds very simple, but that's what the Bitcoin white paper kind of solved. And that was the beginning of like this whole shebang we're into right now. and the beautiful thing about Ethereum when Ethereum came around is that they took the same principle that Bitcoin had proposed, but they took it to the next level.

So again, in my head, the way I see it is like if Bitcoin was a calculator, Ethereum is a computer. Okay, so Bitcoin, we allow you to spend money, and send money and transact globally in a decentralized fashion. Ethereum allows you or any Ethereum based blockchain, such as LUKSO, will allow you to transact pretty much anything that you can, kind of like convert into a smart contract, then you can call them NFTs or otherwise.

But that's, that's the beauty and that's what opened kind of like these amazing aids of this new world of possibilities that literally didn't exist before.

Umindi Francis: Wonderful, wonderful.

So you found you co-founded LUKSO? Yes. And how did that evolve into The Dematerialised. Yeah. When did that happen?

Marjorie Hernandez: Yeah. You know, it's very interesting because we were like running around with this white paper and like explaining people what we were doing and the LUKSO white paper. The LUKSO white paper. Yes. And people were very inspired, but it seemed, for most people, this was so farfetch'd, right?

That we are like this, like sci-fi futurists, right? That this stuff is gonna happen once upon a time, in a way in the future. And. We're like, guys, no, let's gonna happen sooner. And I realized we need to demonstrate it in a user-centric fashion, you know, not something that is as abstract as LUKSO is because LUKSO is meant as a protocol to disappear in the background.

Users don't necessarily need to know what it is yet. They just interact with it, but they don't know it just like we do in our daily lives with many things that we don't really know. They were

Umindi Francis: LUKSO is the engine behind Exactly. The web has three operations.

Marjorie Hernandez: Exactly. Bra. Exactly. And then I was really following this very small, kind of niche trend around like digital assets, digital fashion and sneakers.

Kind of like exiting the gaming world. Like all of a sudden you have creators, you, these digital assets, they were not meant necessarily, just for a game. And they were not made specifically for a game. They were just made for the digital environment at large. and this was one of the propositions that we had in our white paper.

But all of a sudden the creators started emerging and I decided, with my co-founder Karina, to start, The Dematerialised as a destination to really allow users to enter kind of like Web3 in a way that is not intimidating and provide them with a lot of fun, cool, awesome products and experiences.

So effectively what users can do once they arrive to the dematerialize, it looks and fields like a regular e-commerce. but most, if not all of our products are just digital and they exist, registered on a decentralized layer technology, things like LUKSO, for example, or Ethereum. Users can buy them and then they can experience and enjoy them in different virtual environments, even if it's in-game usage like Samsara, VR chat, all of those things, Roblox, or take them as a filter to enjoy on social media.

Umindi Francis: Got it, got it. Yeah, so the web experience for The Dematerialised is truly innovative with its interface, look and feel. It's one of the first platforms that I discovered and truly got me excited about Web3. I discovered the Dematerialised one day I was like, oh my goodness.

And just the way you communicated everything, your videos, your visuals, was so educational for me and got me very excited and interested in this space. Considering my background it was very relatable. So can you tell me about your approach to the platform's concept and the user experience?

Marjorie Hernandez: Oh, that is so awesome to hear. You don't know how happy it makes me to hear that, that you actually enjoyed it. yeah, so I think, you know, for us it was about, you know, because at the beginning with blockchain technology, you have so many, like, to be redundant technologists and cryptographers and mathematicians involved, they're solving the big problems, right?

Mm-hmm. But then we have to take it and bring it down to the world where we are all operating that we want to like to do cool, interesting stuff that we enjoy. And obviously it's fantastic that the thing is aligned with our values. So our goal was to like, let's bring this directly to the users, make it as fun as we can make the Web3 experience as easy as possible.

Because at that point in time, a lot of people, especially a lot of my female friends, were so interested in Web3, but they were not really actively participating because they were intimidated by the whole thing. Like where do I start? And you know, we do remember those of us who were born in the eighties, we'll remember like the beginnings of the web, right?

Yeah. And even though, you know, it was all the pieces that were there, it took a couple of years, if not decades, until we have all of these amazing insanely powerful tools that make the web so incredible.

and then, yeah, so we decided to just create something that is made for the user. Something that people can really love and relate to. And you know, in that way also, like you said, educate them. Like this is the way you enter Web3 and you don't have to be intimidated. And this is, these assets are like, have superpowers. They're like the Swiss army of products, right? They don't get old, they just get better. They get upgrades. They give you access.

They can do all of these things. They're computer programs effectively. And that's the thing, when I think in Web3, we also use different words for things that people already know. Yes. Like smart contracts. Like it is a small computer program, that's what a smart contract is. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. So things like that.

Then all of a sudden make it accessible and. And, and then, for me, the incredible realization was that my phone wouldn't start ringing Umindi in the summer of 2020. This is what you were talking about. I get it. So this is it. Now I get it. And it was like, and, and my co-founder at LUKSO, Fabian, he was like, I don't understand why. Why did they get it now? They didn't get it before. And I was like, well, because this is accessible. Yes, it's usable. And, it's beautiful also.

So that's our mission. And that's kind of like my personal ethos. I heard years ago, this beautiful sentence, I think is by, by an economist that he said, or she said that technology has to be either beautiful or invisible. And I, I really subscribe to that ethos. And then that's what we, our goal was with LUKSO, but especially with The Dematerialised, going directly for those fashion users, for those gamers and like, come join us and let's, let's make Web3 real.

Umindi Francis: Job well done. I remember discovering the platform, probably via social media or something of this nature.

Learning about the fact that in a couple of days we're doing a drop, signing up, getting the alerts and hearing, you know, this is going live now, and then going in there to get my NFTs. Oh, wow. You know, and so it was that simple and that easy for so many people to enter into the Web3 space, but, be a part of a community and be a part of something new and fresh and exciting, which is, you know, still, still happening and growing.

Yes. So the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute exhibition is currently paying homage to fashion icon, the late Karl Lagerfeld, and we are getting ready for the Met. By the time this airs, a Met will have happened. Yes. Dematerialised has had the honor of releasing Karl Lagerfeld's NFT on the marketplace.

That was very, very exciting. Can you tell us about that experience and how it came to be?

Marjorie Hernandez: This is honestly, Umindi, one of a kind, like the moments of my life that make me always feel so lucky, like how this happened. If I would like to go. Oh yeah, back to Caracas, 13 year old Marjorie, and tell her like, yo, by the time you're 37 this stuff is gonna be happening. I, I will be in awe.

We have a beautiful and very serendipitous relationship with Karl Lagerfeld as a figure, and it comes from different ends of life, our journey, in both companies. In both projects. The first step was our first advisor for LUKSO, and you have to imagine pitching this in 2018, is still today the president of Chanel Europe.

Berndt Hauptkorn, he was our first advisor and I couldn't believe that he was interested. I mean, we met him. I pitch and pitch and pitch and he was like, you're smart. I would like you to send me that paper, I'm gonna read it. And, and, and we were very lucky that he decided to kind of support our mission because as a young startup, having a figure like that as your advisor was very significant.

and then we fast forward a couple of years and then I meet a friend of mine that I met in Paris. He tells me, you should meet my father. He will really like you. And I'm thinking the father is like this, I don't know, investment banker was what came to my head. And then when I finally meet him, it is potentially one of the most iconic people I have met in my life.

And his name was, unfortunately, he passed in December last year, and he didn't get to see the Met Gala happening, specifically about Karl Lagerfeld because he was the image director of Chanel for 34 years. Wow. And he and Karl were like a work couple, right? They did everything together. the first, first shot that Karl did, it was in his life, it was because he was complaining and Karl and Eric told him like, if you know better why you don't do it yourself.

And then he, you know, in a very French way. Yeah, the French sassiness that we all like. And Karl went and, and shot the first shot and they had a very close relationship. Karl designed shirts only for Eric and got them made for him, and that was the shirt that he will wear every day.

and I did the same thing that I do to everybody, man. I told him the story about LUKSO and The Dematerialised, and he loved it. And he told me, Karl would have loved it.

Yeah, he, this was shortly after Karl passed and he told me he was always into technology. He was the first guy to get the newest iPhone. He will buy iPhones for everybody. Like everybody needs to have the latest iPhone. And he, you know, he basically showed me that how I mean, the street that in my mind seems so far away coming from Caracas all of a sudden became so accessible and so friendly. Yes. And so special as he was.

So Eric became an advisor, a wonderful friend and mentor in many, many ways.

And you know, Karl, Eric inherited Karl's photographic archive. All of the pictures he ever took are Eric's and then Eric and his family, who he has a fantastic family. And I, we started working on this project of bringing the archive to, to the blockchain and make it last forever and capture so many of those memories that Eric remembers of those shoots. And we're still working on it. Brilliant. And that caught the attention of Karl Lagerfeld the brand. and, and that's the reason why we are participating in the MET Gala.

The fantastic team at the Karl Lagerfeld brand, you know, we had a few conversations. They were very interested in entering the space of understanding how we can translate the incredible ethos and vision of, of, of Karl Lagerfeld into this new world that is happening.

I Call it the metaverse or, or otherwise. And, you know, Karl Lagerfeld is famous for the sentence, I'm possibly misquoting him, but it was something like, embrace, like embrace the, the present and, and envision the future, something like that. So he was primarily interested in the future so that the brand Karl Lagerfeld is, is, is doing the same.

So we've been very fortunate since being able to share with them that journey to entering Web3, entering The Dematerialised world, entering the world of digital only products that we are all very sure Karl would have loved himself. So yeah. So we are in a surreal fashion, involved in this amazing historical moment and together with them, we have a couple of things in the making that we will show on Monday.

Umindi Francis: Oh my goodness. Exciting. Exciting. Well, we'll have to follow up on that. That's really brilliant. Yes. It's so wonderful to hear and I just remember feeling the sheer joy and excitement of seeing it. I didn't, I didn't snag one, but I missed out. I must have been traveling or something. But it was really great seeing everyone repost. Yeah. Their NFTs and it's, you know, such an iconic piece and for years to come. Right?

Marjorie Hernandez: A hundred percent. And the first time when we released the first Karl Lagerfeld doll, it was on his birthday, in I think 2021. Right. If I'm correct and I was actually here in New York and I was walking to a meeting and the drop was happening, 9:00 AM New York time, and I was like, shoot, am I gonna miss my own drop?

I know. So like, what's happening? And then I go into my mobile phone and then I, I mean, I'm the founder, so I shouldn't be impressed, but I was impressed. I promise it was a very impressive moment. I went, I logged in and then I bought it with Apple Pay. And within like, 10, 15 seconds, I have purchased the NFT, and yes, I designed the user journey, but I was still very impressed that all of a sudden it just worked so easily and I was like, did I just buy an NFT? Is this what we are building? It's actually.

And it was such a fantastic moment because I was, all of a sudden , an actual user. I was on a rush. I didn't have, we don't get any special access. We have to like trying to get it just as much as everybody else. And I was running and I was walking and I'm roaming with my German data plan and all of a sudden, I manage.

And I was like, wow. With the German data plan there. There we go. Thank you, Vodafone. No, but still like it was such an impressive moment. And I was like, wow. And yeah, those dolls sold out incredibly quickly.

Umindi Francis: Yes, they did. They did.

So what are some other projects that you've worked on during your time in blockchain, metaverse, Web3 that is worth noting?

Marjorie Hernandez: Oof. I mean, a couple of things. Or you're excited about it. Or oof. Well, I'm excited about so many things, but I, I, well at, at the theme at, at the LUKSO, the, the team building LUKSO, we are working on, on an in-house project called Masson Looks, like our token.

and it is very sick. We're creating this small, because it's meant to be a small digital world. Nice. That, you know, our users will be able to access, we have an activation in Paris. This, this next, ATTC Paris. and we are gonna have a, some activation song and kind of like start revealing the users who we're cooking. but you have to imagine it's like the Truman show without the spooky part and Web3 come together and a very curated, beautiful kind of futuristic experience.

And all of a sudden I'm back to like, My architectural background comes again back into, into use. And The Dematerialised is gonna start exploring more and more, the world of what we call expressives, which is NFTs that are like around makeup, [unclear], wow. All of the, these things that don't, you know, either in the real world, they don't exist in the first place, or they're like some sort of consumable like makeup, right? That are meant to like be used and, and and cease to exist. So we are exploring in that sense and The Dematerialise is gonna start doing some things in that direction.

Umindi Francis: So I don't know if you can answer this today, but I'm super interested in NFTs with beauty. Yes. Because I know that was in your initial white paper and Yes. You know, we don't have enough time, but obviously we're gonna have to sit down again because there's so many use cases, right? Yes, dude. And, let's talk about that one.

Like how, what is a use case, yeah, potentially for beauty and, and Web3?

Marjorie Hernandez: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, there's so many angles to beauty, but I think it's one of the most fun industries in the world. Right? And from an economics perspective, there's this red lipstick case about how, you know, lipsticks, they perform really well no matter what's happening in the economy apparently.

For us, for like, you know, we enter potentially the first luxury item in the Yuko as a teenager if you are brave enough to enter a Chanel store and get that lipstick, and then you walk out with a little pack and you feel like I made it. so beauty is just awesome and it's, and it's fun and it's self-expression and none of those amazing things.

And I, I think it tends to be deemed superficial and I think that's, doesn't. I think it's not really true. I think you said as does fashion, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's, I think we, we have identities and we're unique and, you know, most of us have two arms and two legs and a head and, you know, the way to things, to like feel more like, this is me, this is the way I represent myself and express the singularity that all of us have inside. So I think those are a few strategies that we have around beauty and, and, and, and fashion.

And then, the beautiful thing about digital makeup is, you know, for example, all of a sudden, I see my friends who identified as male being very comfortable with the approach of, like, digging a digital conflict enhancement or digital piece, they potentially wouldn't go into a store and buy makeup.

Right? But all of a sudden the digital part feels intelligent for them since it's interesting. It's not a risk.

Umindi Francis: So you can explore the work with the NFT, with the NFT. So a beauty brand can potentially sell you this look or that look and you purchase the NFT and now you can see what you would look like?

Marjorie Hernandez: A hundred percent.

Okay? And of course we do that today with filters, right? And you will say, okay, if I already get it for free, why should I get an NFT? And that's the main question people will ask. And the thing is, okay, you own this piece of the code and it will give you access to the, all this different experience, but primarily maybe that NFT might gain you access to once this beauty brand decides to produce an actually in life collection.

Mm-hmm. Based on the data and the knowledge that they have from their users of what was exciting and beautiful on the digital collection. So you can also use it for like forecastings and try new stuff. And you know, in the digital world you can change looks as many times as you want during the day. You can have thousands and thousands of products and, you know, having a makeup drawer, my makeup drawer is already like collapse, so I can't buy anymore makeup.

But your digital makeup drug has all of this. Different things and all of a sudden, you know, you can potentially, your digital maker can give you voting rights towards the next collection. Can give you this.

Umindi Francis: I completely get it. Last summer I was in London. Yeah. And I was in Selfridges and at Mac they had something like 15 different looks and you can sit there and look into an iPad and then press through and see all the different looks and that's how I was able to decide on buying a shadow I would never buy. A blush I would never buy. A hundred percent. And so I completely understand the proposition now. Thank you. Thanks for sharing. Wonderful.

So needless to say, Web3 has had a bumpy road over the last year or so. Mm-hmm. What are your thoughts on the ecosystem today and what do you predict for the future?

Marjorie Hernandez: Oof. That's a hard question, isn't it? Yeah. Let me get out my glass bowl. no, I think, you know, we had had a bumpy road, but it's, it's the way I like to see blockchain, if it's like, if the whole world, all of a sudden we have to agree on something, how is that supposed to work?

So it's mirroring a lot of the dynamics that are happening in the world that already exist at an accelerated pace. In a kind of an arena where all of a sudden this insane amount of value is being created. Mm-hmm. And this volatility and anybody can participate in all of that stuff. So we're dealing with all the growing pains that come with decentralized ledger technology. It is a little bit like anarchism, quite frankly, right? And communities have to form and communities have to come together and agree into things. And that consensus within the communities needs to exist. And, and that's the beauty of it. But yeah, it's like, it's, it's not easy and it shouldn't be easy, right?

Because there's no one central authority telling you what's up and what you're supposed to do. This is like, everybody decides what's the best way and all of a sudden, like-minded people come together and start moving in that direction.

So yeah. And of course, open the gates for a lot of scams and speculators and strange businesses and all of that. you know, it's like, you know, regulators need to catch up. You know, lawmakers need to catch up. Lawyers need to get educated. Like so many things need to happen.

But I think we are overall on an amazing trajectory because it's a technology that is very young still. Mm-hmm. We are like a year, kind of like 11 almost since the beginning.

And you know, everybody's counting the clock from the moment the, the, the white paper from Bitcoin was published. Right. And you know, it was not like they did a marketing campaign for it. It was like they just put it on the internet. Right. And people start picking up. So it has been like this, this exponential growth. They started at one and then we are by a high multiple at this point.

So I think, you know, I think for the future, I'm extremely optimistic. I think that comes from being from the Caribbean of being an, sunshine helps sometimes I'm, I'm an optimistic and I optimist. And you know, I think what is gonna happen is that we are gonna start seeing, you know, these communities forming and having very clear opinions about certain things.

We're gonna see amazing products being built. Completely new ecosystems will appear. I think web two companies are gonna have a massive issue catching up. I think we're gonna see a massive disruption. A lot of businesses are going out, becoming outdated. A lot of brands that we know for decades, will become irrelevant. Mm-hmm. And we will see a massive amount of new companies and businesses and creators from all parts of the world emerging and powering this creator economy. And I think, you know, the prediction for the future is that there will be many more bumpy roads that bumps around the road.

There will be, you know, more like prices going down and crisis prices going up and all of that shebang. But overall, we are in a massive process of transformation and that transformation is not gonna stop and eventually we're gonna have amazing products and services and they are built on, on, on premises that are way more fair and interesting.

Umindi Francis: Yeah, that's so exciting because the landscape and communication channels and ways in which brands reach their target consumers is ever expanding. you know, how do you see Web3 supporting a brand's growth today and in the future? Yeah, there are so many, you know, luxury brands, big name brands that have dibbed and, you know, dabbled in this space.

You know, just jumping ahead in order to do something to say that they were forward. And it's kind of gotten quiet right now, and I really love this moment of these new brands continuing to do things. What, what do you think the proposition for growth is for any brand, yeah, in this space?

Marjorie Hernandez: I mean, it is like the world is changing. And it's gonna change and you need to do something. And you know, I think, I think the biggest risk is, KPIs. You know, like you might be performing really well right now. It might mean nothing in five years. Right, right. I'm pretty sure Blockbuster was doing great until they weren't. Mm-hmm. Right.

There was a blockbuster in every corner when I was a kid. Yeah. And now there's like one left. So I think the fact that you're doing well doesn't mean that you will continue to do well, especially if the rules of the game fully change. So I think, you know, this world that we're moving towards, this Dematerialised world of these limitless and amazing products is actually embracing even more what brands are.

It's about all of the intangibles that represent a brand. All of the things that make us love brands, right? It's not.

Like what?

Like, for example, when we go and make a purchase decision is not necessarily a very pragmatic decision. I'm gonna buy this pair of jeans because it's higher quality than the other one. You might choose a pair of jeans just because you like the brand more. Mm-hmm. Maybe there's another one of identical quality for a maybe cheaper price, but you just don't like the brand that much. You know? And I think that, that, that those decisions are not necessarily pragmatical. We just love, we subscribe to the belief of a, of a brand. We identify with the values, we identify with the way they view the world, identify with their perception of beauty, and then we subscribe to that ethos and then we make user purchases decisions.

And I think that's, even, that's a proposition, it is at the core of this Web3 world, right? It is all about those intangibles that become really, really real in a fully digital world.

So I think it's that exercise and that, that, that challenge of embracing what does it mean for my brand today if I don't have to manufacture a physical product ever again, who are we? Right? And all of those pieces that are beyond the pieces of leather and cotton, that's what it is. Right? And then you have to take that and take it to a world that has no limits and has no gravity and has none of that stuff that is being kind of like stopping and nothing will age. And we will all look beautiful forever.

But you know, like take that and translate it there. And I think that's an amazing challenge for brands to take. And I do think many, many brands are gonna succeed in that. And I think many brands won't. Like they use and that's totally fine.

And I think the most exciting part, I think not the most, but I think the biggest challenge will be around talent. Because if I'm a young creator today and I can enter a market, why should I go work for a brand? And I don't, I don't have the answer. The answer would be don't, don't, don't do it. Right. So I think the challenge will be for brands to understand, okay, how do they still maintain not only cultural relevance, but being attracted to creators to still come to us and work with, to help create, to help the brigade to work with us?

Yeah. Because I think if a very talented person won't need, besides, like, you know, gaining job experience and hanging out with other people, they won't need to do it. They can just go ahead and build their own vision of the world. So I think that those are the interesting challenges that are coming.

But I am super optimistic and I think I love to see how so many fashion brands have been so brave. And go ahead and try different strategies.

Umindi Francis: Yeah. And, these brands should continue to be brave. Yeah. I think this is a call to action. Yeah. If you have a brand or you're thinking of a brand, get in the lab.

Yeah. You know, allocate time, resources to think about this because the future is now and it's just going to continue evolving. Yes. You know, and there's so many communities being built quietly around this. Yeah. That is just trickling into the global consumer market.

Marjorie Hernandez: A hundred percent. Yeah. The future is indeed present.

Umindi Francis: So there are so many innovative companies and projects that are in the nascent stages right now, and I'm personally looking forward to the evolution and growth of how these technologies will converge and strengthen and build the new Web3 ecosystem of tomorrow. Are there any trends that you're seeing at this moment that are exciting or inspiring you?

Marjorie Hernandez: Oof. Amazing. I mean, I think, you know, in terms of statistics, we have seen a lot of things like the statistics from the gaming world, kind of like migrating into, into this whole digital product trends that we have now, and also then coming into physical production. So you have all of these products that look full of fantasy or like the pixel collection and a bunch of different stuff.

Umindi Francis: Oh, I love that. Pixel collection.

Marjorie Hernandez: JW Anderson is like,

Umindi Francis: Killing it, man. I saw the shirt on an e-commerce platform and I had to zoom in to make sure that it actually was.

Marjorie Hernandez: It looks like it shouldn't be real. Right. You know, and you know, I do love products. Like they have the twist of like surrealism and like the materiality challenges you and you don't know if it's digital, enhanced or not. So they're informing each other. Right. Okay. There was an architect that said, did New York exist before New York in the cinema? Because it says like the, the, the, the vision of New York in the cinema informs New York back. Right. so I think it's a little bit of that that we see in fashion and in culture in general, the officer and the digital staff are informing the physical staff and vice versa.

I get it. and I think. I mean, between the, all of the stuff that is happening in AI now, by all of this, by opening these tools and mid journey and ChatGPT and all of that stuff, all of a sudden we have, like, we have tapped on a well of infinite possibilities. Yes. And, and that's incredibly exciting.

So I think in terms of trends, I mean, I cannot stop using the Discord bots to generate another and another image. And I think, you know, it's just in general just to see, and you know, like, like human creators, you know, coming up with, with these collections and, and these products that really are so full of fantasy and reminiscent and, you know, feel like they come from a video game or another world.

It is incredible. So I think, by the time you and I don't look this young anymore, the world is gonna be a wild place because I think as much as we try to imagine it and, and we are actively participating in, in, in building, that, that those dreams that we have, I think is gonna go beyond our wildest dreams.

Yeah. And I can't wait to see it.

Umindi Francis: Yeah. So my next question is, are we a long way off from widespread adoption? What will it take?

Marjorie Hernandez: That's a great question. I think, I think, honestly, I was talking the other day to my team and you know, we talk about this stuff every day and I, I ha I have the feeling that actually the, the more blockchain technology and the challenges and LUKSO is coming out, we're in the process of launching with a lot of thi No, no, no. Our products are gonna solve a lot of these problems. Okay. That we have right now in Web3. But I think it's not a blockchain problem. I actually think the problem is a hardware issue because everything that we are describing, It's like where do we experience it in the way that we are all feeling it should be?

You know, when we talk about the metaverse and this digital, spaces and the juxtaposition between physical and digital. Where is that actually happening? It happens a little bit in our mobile phones because we are like in a symbiotic relationship with it, and we are like cyborgs. But we are there. It is not there yet.

Right? So I think once, you know, either Apple or another company kills their best-selling product and give us the next product, that hopefully is gonna be that insane, you know, looking glass that we are gonna put on and it's gonna have us have all of us living in two realities at the same time, then I think that might actually be, be the thing that it will accelerate, accelerate that adoption.

Umindi Francis: Listen, Facebook changing its name to Meta definitely was, you know, a bomb heard around the world and made such a huge change.

Marjorie Hernandez: Absolutely. And I think it's such a brave move and, you know, yeah, we should forget. You shouldn't forget that. Even though Mark Zuckerberg, he's been doing this job for 300 years, he's a very young person.

Yes. You know, he was born in 1984, a great year, by the way. And, you know, and, and he's very young and I think he's very aware, clearly he's very aware of what's culturally happening in the world. And Right. I think it's awesome that he makes moves in that direction, and we all hope he's gonna embrace decentralization.

Umindi Francis: Yeah. I have a couple more questions, but I feel like we may have answered them. Like what advice would you give to executives and decision makers who are slow to address the proposition of Web3 for their businesses?

Marjorie Hernandez: I, I think we answered it, but I do, yeah, we answered that. But I do think, you know, like maybe what we can add to that though is like if you're an executive today and you're entering the Web3 space, like obviously you can go via a marketing strategy, but you need to make sure that it's not only happening in your marketing department.

You need those strategies to have long legs and you need those strategies to be funded within like the deep kind of operational heart of the company. And not only like a bit short, like in timeframes, like shorter market strategies. Got it.

Umindi Francis: Well, Marjorie, it was so phenomenal having this conversation with you.

It is you, who touched on so many great things, enlightened so many different areas, and I could literally sit here with you for another hour and talk and me with you and talk about so much more. I have so many questions, but we'll keep it short. How can people listening follow you and stay up to date with your work?

Marjorie Hernandez: Amazing. Well, you guys can follow my company. Obviously LUKSO is in social media and in Discord, you know, Instagram, Twitter, the usual suspect is L U K S O. and then you can find everything we are up to. The Dematerialised is also very, very, active in social media. We spell the Dematerialised with an S and not with a Z.

and we are in TikTok, Instagram and Twitter and you can find me Marjorie Hernandez also on social media. I try to share my thoughts and ideas on a daily basis and yeah, yeah, there we can find each other.

Umindi Francis: Fantastic. Well, thanks for being here. Thank you. It was such an honor to have you here. Thank you. And this is What's Next Podcast with Umindi Francis.

And we had the best conversation with Marjorie Hernandez, the founder of LUKSO and The Dematerialised. Have a good one. Thank you, babe. All right.