AI’s authentication capacity for some time. But overall, luxury brands are only just starting to navigate their way through the bigger AI-generated picture. “People at the highest level of LVMH have been doing a lot of workshops in San Francisco with Microsoft, digging through how they can partner with the best people to use these tools,” says Cyril Foiret, creative director of the Maison Meta brand agency in New York and founder of AI Fashion Week. “We have been working with fashion designers to help create AI models based on their personal data sets so that they can produce designs with the same DNA every time,” he says. “I can foresee a future where fashion houses have two distinct collections: an AI-directed and a humandirected one.” But what would a purely AI-generated collection look like? And will we really have parallel strands, or will the industry cool its boots about the idea of handing over creative control to software? For some time now, versions of what we now consider AI have been commonplace in Issey Miyake’s Tokyo design studios, where complex mathematical algorithms play as much a part in the design workflow as in innovations in the use of recycled PET. Some obvious examples of the use of AI in fashion include digital imaging for marketing at Gucci, Moncler and Valentino, but there have been more adventurous uses: back in 2020, Jonny Johansson of Acne collaborated with artist Robbie Barrat, inputting thousands of archive looks from the Swedish brand into Barrat’s software, then generating new designs. A selection of physical samples was made, many of them straightforward – jackets, trousers and so forth. But while a lot of AI is about processing data and forecasting in a way that previously existing technology couldn’t, it’s also about mistakes. Like those sci-fi movies in which a droid malfunctions because it can’t quite comprehend human nature, the resulting designs included faults like impractical curves on fastenings. An earlier AI project Barrat collaborated on with Balenciaga resulted in jumpsuits covering the feet. This November, journalist Marc Bain wrote about these “hallucinations” in The Business of Fashion. “Generative AI models don’t understand the meaning of text or images,” he wrote. “In design, however, there generally isn’t a binary between right and wrong … getting things ‘wrong’ can yield unexpected new ideas.” So far, so interesting, but often “interesting” isn’t the highest praise. A child’s drawing might be momentarily eye-catching for having something of the energy of a Basquiat about it, but it’s simply crude coincidence. And there is, in fact, a binary “wrong” in design. If you can’t physically produce a design, there’s little or no point to it. Which is where AI can actually help. Prototyping without the expense of creating a costly leather or finewool sample creates a safe space for making mistakes. In Tokyo, AI is being used to further enhance something that was already pretty much perfected. Issey Miyake launched his minimal-waste A-POC line of clothing in 1998, produced flat in perforated machinemade rolls, then essentially “finished” by the customer as they chose how to cut it out and wear it. A recalibrated A-POC ABLE appeared in 2021 under the design directorship of Yoshiyuki Miyamae, a year before Miyake passed away. The brand was represented at Milan Design Week this past April with the “Thinking Design, Making Design: Type-V Nature Architects” project. Milan was a showcase of what’s possible in terms of form, function and the future of A-POC ABLE’s “Steam Stretch” tech. It was a collaboration with Nature Architects, essentially an advanced think tank for textiles with roots in the University of Tokyo. The project used AI but, like everything under the Miyake brand to date, it’s also about the human eye, craft and talent. “We incorporated computer algorithms as a means to look for new solutions in the manufacturing process,” says Miyamae. “The most important thing in working with AI is how the user approaches a problem and identifies potential areas for its application. In this project, we have solved the problem of ‘how to flatten a three-dimensional object’ by using the software developed by Nature Architects.” One controversial use of AI is the altering of facial details of models – particularly with regard to race. Some big brands have also been criticised for expressing excitement over the potential of AI to generate more diverse-looking (virtual) models. But why not just cast and pay real people? Many model agents believe AI is both good and bad: “3D scanning of models presents a mutual opportunity and risk for e-commerce models,” 69
