By Jessica Ye (Jessica Yap)
Fashion has always reflected the world around us. The rise of streetwear mirrored youth rebellion. Quiet luxury arrived during an era of economic uncertainty and aesthetic fatigue.
But fashion has never really been only about clothes. It has always been about identity — who gets to have it, who gets to shape it, and what happens when it stops feeling fixed.
Now, as artificial intelligence, virtual environments and algorithm-driven platforms increasingly shape how people present themselves, identity is starting to behave less like something we inherit and more like something we actively construct. Not just in how we dress, but in how we exist across different versions of ourselves.
For Briar Prestidge, this shift is not theoretical. It sits inside how work, visibility and selfhood increasingly overlap. The founder of Prestidge Group, digital fashion designer at OLTAIR, Board Advisor to the Metaverse Fashion Council, and futurist working across branding and emerging technology, her work sits at the intersection of identity and its systems.
For Couture Troopers, she speaks about how identity is built, stretched, and rebuilt in real time.
At what point did shaping identity become more interesting to you than simply telling stories?
BP: Identity has always sat at the intersection of my work across tech, media, digital avatar fashion and futurism.
As the founder of one of the world’s first international executive and personal branding agencies, Prestidge Group, back in 2016, I saw how quickly the media landscape was changing. Many CEOs and executives were still focused on traditional visibility such as press features and interviews, while fashion and beauty creators were building entire digital communities online.
They understood something early: identity could be shaped in real time. The way people present themselves online can completely alter the opportunities they attract.
My agency was the first business in my media and tech portfolio, built from one month’s salary after I was fired from my last corporate job. The early startup years were gnarly. My identity became fused with the business.
It wasn’t until I hit burnout and experienced intense loneliness after pouring everything into work that I realised success means very little if you lose yourself in the process.
I became obsessed with the idea that identity is not fixed. A lot of who we become is shaped through repetition, our routines, environments, beliefs and the stories we tell ourselves.
I had already reinvented myself many times over. From a farm girl in New Zealand to a waitress in New York, then into real estate, recruitment, entrepreneurship and personal branding. From creating a real-life luxury power suit label to designing digital fashion for avatars.
Each chapter required becoming a different version of myself before I fully felt ready for it.
We are predicted to experience more change in the next 20 years than humans have lived through in the past 200,000 with emerging technologies such as AI, robotics and biotech. The future will not only demand new skills, but also a new adaptability of identity.
I often think about what kind of human we need to become to meet this era of exponential technological change with awareness rather than fear.
You’ve built a career around constructing public personas. Is identity still stable today, or constantly engineered?
BP: Identity has become far more layered.
For most of human history, identity was shaped by geography, family, religion or career. It was relatively stable and externally assigned. Today, technology actively participates in shaping the self.
We no longer exist solely in the physical world. We also exist as curated LinkedIn identities, avatars and eventually persistent AI twins.
But adaptability without self-awareness can become what I call “identity drift”, the slow erosion of the self through constant external influence, trends and algorithmic loops.
What fascinates me most is that identity is no longer purely psychological or philosophical. It is becoming technological infrastructure.
Our voice, likeness, behavioural patterns, preferences, creative output and communication style are all becoming trainable data for personalised AI systems and digital twins that may eventually interact on our behalf long after we log off, or even long after we die.
“That forces humanity into an entirely new question: not simply “Who are you?” but “Which version of you lives on?”
With Oltair and your work in virtual worlds, is digital self-expression desire-driven or experimental?
BP: Digital identity is not superficial.
At first, avatars and digital fashion may have felt like internet roleplay or dress-up. But for younger generations like Gen Z and Alpha, avatars are extensions of social identity, confidence and creativity.
Avatars are also a form of psychological experimentation. Someone who feels insecure may first experiment with confidence through an avatar. Someone creatively restricted in the physical world may finally express themselves fully through digital fashion.
“Immersive worlds are identity laboratories.”
That is what made building OLTAIR so exciting to me. On the surface, we created a futuristic shopping and gaming experience inside Roblox where users explore hidden worlds, socialise with friends and unlock digital fashion. But underneath that is something much larger. It is really a space for self-exploration and future identity play.
What fascinates me about digital fashion is that it removes the limitations of the physical world. A dress can be made of fire. A jacket can move like liquid metal. You can communicate rebellion, fantasy, futurism or reinvention without needing permission from gravity, practicality or even biology.
I think that freedom is incredibly powerful for younger generations growing up online. They have grown up as avatars, and it is how many of them experiment with who they really are.
You spent 48 hours in VR for ‘48 Hours in the Metaverse’. Did it shift how you think about physical presence?
BP: Yes, completely.
In 2022, I spent 48 hours nonstop inside immersive virtual reality platforms while producing my indie documentary, ‘48 Hours in the Metaverse’. The project later premiered at Roxy Cinemas and received multiple international film festival awards while exploring the emotional, social and psychological implications of life inside virtual worlds.
During the experiment, I travelled through 33 digital environments, including virtual twins of Dubai’s Al Wasl Dome and Australia’s Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. I was joined by 21 experts appearing as avatars, and together we explored business, healthcare, education, safety, identity and social connection.
One of the most striking moments was seeing how chemotherapy patients from around the world were using virtual spaces to emotionally support one another despite being physically isolated.
At the same time, I still had to navigate very human realities in the physical world such as exhaustion, sleep deprivation and VR sickness while wearing an Oculus Quest 2 headset for extended periods.
The experience felt like existing between two layers of reality at once.
In the physical world, most strangers barely speak to each other anymore. Inside the first immersive platform I explored, I had made avatar friends and was flying through virtual worlds with them within minutes.
The avatars themselves were also incredibly revealing. Purple skin, futuristic outfits, fantasy aesthetics — anything goes with self expression.
It changed the way I think about physical presence. We are always presenting ourselves through clothing, posture, tone of voice, environment and digital presence.
“In virtual reality, identity is visibly edited. In real life, I think it always has been.”
We have simply been taught to call it personality instead of authorship.
Are avatars extensions of identity or separate selves?
BP: I see avatars as extensions of identity, but also previews of who we are becoming.
I have always been fascinated by the space between the person we are and the person we are evolving into. Often, we have to take action before our identity emotionally catches up.
When I moved from a small town in New Zealand to New York, I was prototyping a future version of myself. I changed how I dressed, studied how confident people moved through rooms and observed how they communicated. Slowly, my internal identity began catching up with my external actions.
Avatars operate similarly.
That is why I love designing avatar fashion. It allows fashion to exist beyond the body and beyond the constraints of physics. The only real limit becomes imagination.
I believe we are moving toward a future where identity becomes increasingly fluid across physical, digital and AI-mediated spaces. The challenge will be ensuring technology expands human expression rather than flattening it into sameness.
How do you navigate enhancement technologies without losing something human?
BP: My experiments with emerging technologies including brain-computer interfaces and radical life extension have ultimately become a deeply human journey.
Through my documentary Cyborg To Be, I have explored these ideas with scientists, futurists, AI researchers and people working at the edge of what is technologically possible.
One of the most meaningful experiences I have had was interviewing and playing chess with Noland Arbaugh, the first human to receive a Neuralink brain-computer implant. Noland is paralysed from the shoulders down, and seeing him regain autonomy through the technology was incredibly powerful.
I also interviewed Bradford Smith, another Neuralink patient who technically died four times in 2020 and now relies on machines to stay alive. He uses Neuralink and AI systems to communicate with his family.
That deeply human dimension is often lost in conversations around enhancement technologies.
We have already merged with technology in many ways. Pacemakers keep people alive. Smartphones have become extensions of memory, and AI increasingly influences our decisions.
But I refuse to live on autopilot.
I want to use technology to expand human potential, to create, heal and learn, while remaining conscious of how these systems shape us in return.
“The next frontier of humanity cannot simply be technological advancement. It also has to be about reclaiming agency.”
What becomes status in a fully constructed identity world?
BP: I think distinction will come from coherence.
In a world where people exist across multiple platforms, avatars, AI systems and curated identities, the people who stand out will be those who feel deeply aligned rather than endlessly performative.
“We are moving into an era where almost anyone can manufacture visibility, aesthetics or attention. But attention is not the same as substance.
The people who will hold long-term influence are those with a strong sense of self, a clear philosophy and the ability to build genuine trust around their ideas.“
What defines taste when everything can be generated?
BP: Taste becomes judgment, restraint and point of view.
When everything can be generated, creation becomes easy. Meaning becomes harder.
The strongest creative work will still require emotional intelligence, imagination and lived experience.
“AI may increase the volume of what gets made. Taste will determine what people remember.”
What will we still cling to in the future you describe?
BP: I think humans will always search for meaning, connection and the feeling that their lives matter.
Even if our identities extend across AI systems, avatars and digital worlds, people will still want to feel emotionally alive.
We will still fall in love, seek belonging, pursue purpose and try to leave an impact.
What is changing is the structure surrounding human life itself.
We are entering a time where the traditional idea of one fixed self becomes less relevant.
The internet and AI have already given humanity unprecedented leverage.
We can either be shaped by the future, or help shape it ourselves.
“Evolution is the new ambition. Identity is where that evolution begins.”
