Fashion Forward
I’m a huge nerd. I studied engineering in school, worked in tech for many years, and can generally geek out about all the latest innovations. For a good portion of last winter, I was focused on making LOTA a web3 platform for artists and creators. I was genuinely excited about the promise of the space, offering creators ownership of their IP and fair payout. The timing and intentions of the space felt off (hello, crypto winter and FTX).
This year has been dominated by artificial intelligence (AI) and I’ve been interested in the convergence of AI with art, design, and fashion. (Full disclosure, I use ChatGPT a lot from the most menial tasks to building models. As an entrepreneur, it has the best intern I could ask for).
A recent study showed that 25% of Americans think AI will make their lives worse (and another 25% don’t know what to expect) and I get it, even more so for artists and creatives who feel like it will take their jobs. But, ever the optimist, I think AI can be a powerful tool to enhance your creative vision, not replace it. When photography was first introduced, many painters feared it would end painting. Instead, it liberated artists from the need to depict reality, paving the way for impressionism and postmodernism.
For today’s post, let’s explore some projects I’ve seen at the intersection of fashion and AI.
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In magazines: Moncler, Casablanca
According to McKinsey and Company, generative AI could add between $150 billion to $275 billion to the apparel, fashion, and luxury sectors’ operating profits by improving efficiencies in production, marketing, store operations, styling, and more. The first simple example of the intersection of fashion and AI is in advertising campaigns. Instead of costly shoots in remote locations, ad campaigns can now be created using AI tools including the models and locations.
Moncler Genius’ AI-generated visuals for its Fall 2023 collection | PC: Moncler Genius For their Fall 2023 collection, Moncler colloborated with brands and celebrities like Adidas, Pharrell Williams, and Alicia Keys, using AI generated images for their campaigns. Similarly, French fashion brand, Casablanca used AI for its Spring/Summer 2023 campaign. Other brands like Valentino, Zegna, and Ralph Lauren have also created AI-generated campaigns leveraging AI models for either images, graphics, or copy.
Casablanca’s AI generated campaign from its SS23 Collection | Images: Casablanca -
On the runway: Ganni and Collina Strada
Ganni and Collina Strada integrated AI into their Spring/Summer ‘24 shows. Creative directors Ditte Reffstrup of Ganni and Hillary Taymour of Collina Strada both believe that AI can be used to enhance creativity. They each, in line with brand’s aesthetics, created collections that balanced the sharp edges of technology with a softer, human touch.
As Reffstrup shared about the show, “Hello World”, show, “Recently, it [AI] feels like something else to panic about, because it’s so far from my world. But I was thinking about AI’s potential for good. As a mother of three kids, and as a woman running a business, I think a lot about how to raise my kids to be kind, to feel secure, to be responsible. It’s the same with GANNI, how do we grow this brand into the most responsible business it can be? So we talked about how it might be possible to create a kinder, more thoughtful AI, one that does good”. For the Ganni show, the team worked with AI artist Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm to bring the trees to life with an embedded AI that was the backdrop of the show.
Collina Strada SS 24 show, Soft is Hard, set to “Why are we here, the earth’s on fire” lyrics sung by musician and collaborator cast in the show, Oyinda. The models showed big smiles down the runaway and had a fierce look on their way back up the runway playing into the overall theme of the show | PC: Collina Strada At Collina Strada AI played a more central role to the design of the clothes. The team fed an AI model all the of Collina Strada’s previous collections and asked for it to “remix old Collina and drive it further”. While the AI designs captured the essence of Collina’s whimsical style, but the execution was more difficult given the lack of consideration around the construction, fit, or materials for each of the pieces. The collection, titled Soft is Hard, was designed to “reconnect to the universal feminine energy during a time of political and social strife”, according to Taymour’s runway show notes.
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At tech conferences: Adobe’s Project Primrose: AI-enabled dress
Project Primrose showcased an AI-enabled gown that can adapt in real-time to new fabrics, colors, and patterns. The modular tiles of the dress shift according to the wearer's movements. Demonstrated at Adobe’s MAX conference in October, it's a prototype of how wearables and AI can merge, hinting at applications in other products like handbags and furniture. Video of full demo below.
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In your shopping cart: Revolve / Maison Meta AI Fashion Week Winners
Pieces from the winning AI collection designed by architect José Sabral, Paatiff Revolve and Maison Meta, AI creative agency, partnered to launch the first AI Fashion Week earlier this year, attracting 400 entries into an AI fashion design competition. The winners, Paatiff, MOLNM, and OPÉ, now have their first AI-generated collections up on Revolve which were designed using AI image generation tools, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. Most notably, two of the three designers, Paatiff and MOLMN, did not have any prior experience in fashion.
While each of the collections have a different inspiration from architectural elements in Paatiff’s work to nature and fluidity in MOLMN, and more extravagant texture play for OPÉ, the overall feeling from the pieces is much more avant-garde and futuristic.
In some ways this feels like what you’d expect to see when a computer and human come together to design a collection. I am curious to see where the next iteration goes as Revolve and Maison Meta gear up for their next installment of AI Fashion Week this winter.
“Emergence” collection from OPÉ now on sale at Revolve -
On social media: Emerging AI Influencers
Check out these Instagram accounts featuring AI fashion designs:
@dripnotfound: Daily streetwear account by Hilario Pedro featuring AI-generated fashion. This specific piece was meant to blend tribal patterns with streetwear as shared in the post’s caption: “This is where the past meets the future, where the glitch becomes art, and the urban sprawl a playground for the new age tribal warrior. She is not just dressed, but cloaked in the essence of two worlds - the ancient wisdom of her forebears woven seamlessly with the heartbeat of streetwise modernity.”
RAL7000STUDIO: Italy based footwear design studio. They created a set of AI designs of the Nike x Jacquemus drop earlier this year that went viral (and some argue were more popular than the actual drop)
@phygitaltwin: Integrating the digital and physical worlds of fashion. The specific post below features an AI designed streetwear outfit by artist Stephy Fung who wanted to integrate Chinese symbols in her look.
