How much would you spend on a pair of sneakers that you can never actually touch? And you would only get to wear them in posts on social media or in an online environment, or "metaverse"?

Is $10 too much? Or how about $1,000? A company called RTFKT is selling limited-edition virtual sneakers for between $1,000 and $5,000. 

And according to Reuters, it has already made $7 million in sales. RTFKT also sells real-world versions of its virtual shoes.

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A group of three friends created RTFKT at the start of the pandemic. And now its clientele is young people ranging from teenagers to people in their 30s.

"There's a real demand for more obscure sneakers because, in video games, there are no limits to what you can create, whereas the physical is pretty different," said Steven Vasilev, the co-founder and CEO of RTFKT.

A customer can buy the "wearables" as an asset called a non-fungible token (NFT), which means it is one of a kind and can't be replicated.

And once purchased, the person's avatars can wear the products in virtual worlds such as Decentraland, a role-playing metaverse.

The firm also says that around one in 10 of its customers buys its products for social media. Products like its shoes can be "worn" in posts on social media platforms through a special Snapchat filter.

"You have to get used to what the new generation of kids is seeing in games, right?" said Chris Le, another co-founder of RTFKT. "They're wearing digital fashion that has flames, they have wings, they can fly. They can be all kinds of crazy stuff. 

"If this generation is now starting to get used to that kind of stuff, it only makes sense that a brand like ours comes out of the blue to cater to that new niche."

The London-based company Auroboros also creates and sells clothing for people to wear on social media, in video games, or via augmented reality. 

Prospective customers send a picture of themselves to Auroboros and it digitally adds the clothing to the image, all for a price that ranges between $83 and $1,400.

Like RTFKT, Auroboros also said that one in 10 of its customers uses their product specifically for social media. And the co-founders argued that its products could be a more sustainable form of fashion.

In a 2018 Barclaycard survey, 9 percent of respondents said they purchased clothes to wear on their social media accounts and then returned them. With companies like Auroboros, a person with enough disposable income would no longer have to go to those extremes. 

"We need to have the shift now in fashion. The industry simply cannot continue," said Paula Sello, one of the co-founders of Auroboros.

"We wanted to digitize the pieces, not only just to replicate the physical fashion, but really to uplift and upgrade garments to a whole new aesthetic realm. We can wear fire, we can wear water, whatever we like in the digital. And with that comes a whole new visual language."

Luxury retailers have also made similar products. For example, Gucci sold clothing for avatars in the video game Roblox. And in September, Dolce & Gabbana has also announced plans to release its own NFT collection 

Video editor: Pedro Duarte.