used into the real world, with a physical runway event. We want to have this ultimately incorporated into the existing fashion calendars.” The first designers from AI Fashion Week to have clothing sold via Revolve are first-place winner José Sabral (whose label Paatiff includes tailored women’s blazer dresses with transparent vinyl elements), Matilde Mariano and Opé, an alumna of Betsey Johnson. Foiret says the talent coming through, maximising the use of AI, is amazing: “Last season we saw a beautiful kimonoinspired denim collection by Metamorphix, and the detail was incredible.” While many uses of AI are still relatively crude, a designer like Gianluca Traina, whose CV includes formal studies in knitwear design in Florence, sees himself as an artist as well as someone who creates garment prints and a template for pattern cutting. His Arno collection for 2024 saw him “take on the role of creative director”, generating the designs, but then also generating a sophisticated campaign showing virtual models in a variety of casings floating in the river in Florence. “This required imagining and visualising not only the garments but also the entire scenario in which the collection would be presented,” he says. “That said, the collection is ready for production, but I wouldn’t want to directly oversee the production process. I believe this aspect should be managed by professionals experienced in coordinating actual manufacturing and marketing.” Traina is currently using Midjourney, an AI program first released in an open beta version in mid-2022, and which has fast become an industry standard for image making. Scottish kilt maker Steven Patrick Sim – who works under the name “the Tartan Artisan” – used Midjourney to create images showcasing the tartan he generated via the ChatGBT assistant he calls Alana. It is, he claims, the world’s first AI-generated tartan. He had previously used ChatGBT to help him rationalise, in text form, the dual forces of yin and yang in Chinese philosophy, so he could create a tartan pattern the traditional way. His subsequent tartan, registered with the Scottish Register of Tartans in October 2023, was entirely AI-generated, with prompt inspirations from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. When asked to comment on the process for this editorial, Sim instructed Alana to formulate a statement which put him in the third person. “The final design was a revelation, a pattern that seemed predestined in the cosmos, now unveiled through AI,” he muses. “There is navy blue for the vast knowledge AI can access, bright gold for the enlightenment it brings, shades of grey for impartiality, red for innovation, and green for environmental consciousness.” It was a testament to his belief that every tartan exists in the universe, waiting to be discovered. So here we are, working through the early days of a new industrial revolution. AI will help crunch numbers, could potentially eliminate waste textiles, create streamlined workflow and export procedures, and, of course, help generate imagery and colour combinations that we can’t yet imagine. And while there will still be the corps of couture ateliers reworking toile after toile, the twin strands of its use in fashion could see that world exist alongside a new democratisation of fashion. As Gianluca Traina says: “It allows me to work with zero budget, but lots of imagination.” AI will help crunch numbers, could eliminate waste, create streamlined workflow, and, of course, help generate imagery and colour combinations that we can’t yet imagine 73
