The AI fashion revolution: where do creative design and modern technology intersect?
By Dalal Daher
AI is one of today’s hottest topics, with technological developments like chatbot ChatGPT taking the world by storm. Artificial intelligence has been used in a wide variety of fields from police surveillance to healthcare, but it’s also becoming a major influence in a more unexpected field: fashion.
While it’s much less talked about than its other uses, AI has slowly been taking over different areas of the fashion industry. A 2020 Industry Wired article predicted that, globally, the fashion and retail industries’ investment in AI would hit $7.3 billion in 2022, which is not a negligible portion of the $1.7 trillion industry. McKinsey’s 2022 State of Fashion Technology Report also endorsed AI as a growing and very lucrative power in the industry, predicting that fashion corporations that use AI in their business models could be rewarded with a 118% overall increase in revenue by 2030.
So how exactly is AI used in the fashion field?
AI is becoming increasingly prevalent in different aspects of the industry, from being incorporated into the design process to helping streamline marketing decisions and supply chain management. Cult-following brands like Dior and Nike have used AI in the past to personalize their customer experience, with Dior creating “Dior Insider,” an AI chatbot that connects to Facebook Messenger, and Nike using AI in their 2017 “On Demand” campaign. With Nike’s campaign helping customers achieve the ethos of the brand and stay active, and Dior’s chatbot giving customers more insight into their products, these initiatives focused mainly on the marketing side of fashion and customer retention.
However, the more revolutionary side of AI and fashion can be seen in the increase in AI-based design. The marriage of AI and design has the potential to help solve a major problem faced by the current industry: the overproduction and consumption of garments. When fashion designers embrace AI algorithms in their creative process, they can predict trends rather than follow them and ensure that their designs will sell in the current market. The melding of AI and design also allows for more customer involvement and specialization towards a brand’s target market, which leads to a more sustainable fashion industry as companies know that their products are sure to be purchased.
One notable company that has made AI an integral part of its business model is ready-to-wear shop Finesse US. Finesse markets itself to its 467,000 Instagram followers as “the first AI-led fashion house where you decide what we produce.” Finesse’s aim is to avoid overproduction and waste and places its creative power and ultimate product selection strongly in the hands of its consumers. Finesse’s design process relies minimally on excessive fabric use: the brand analyzes popular fashion trends via algorithms, uses this information to design three possible outfits that are then 3-D modeled and eventually put to a public vote. Only the most popular outfit is put into production, a tactic that ensures that they have a receptive market for new drops, avoid fabric waste, and engage the brand’s younger, more technologically-savvy customer base.
Finesse US exemplifies how a blend of AI and design can lead to higher customer satisfaction and retention, by leaving a large part of the creative process up to the desires of its shoppers and current trends. However, the decision-making power that the brand relinquishes in its reliance on AI seems to be at the cost of individual creativity. A big fear permeating the creative side of fashion is that AI will not only diminish the human workforce but reduce industry-wide originality, making fashion a game solely based on predicting temporary trends instead of an artistic field.
Given the relative novelty of AI-based fashion design, there’s a lot of uncertainty as to how the industry should navigate these changing waters. Just as fashion isn’t a homogenous creative landscape, the solution to striking a balance between originality and AI isn’t one-size-fits-all. However, there’s great potential for designers to reach new levels of innovation through the technology.
One case is footwear designer Marco Simonetti, whose exclusively digital creations have been a hit on social media. Simonetti and his collective RAL7000STUDIO tap into AI to unleash a futuristic, distinctive creative world. In December 2022, Simonetti posted visuals of his AI-generated take on a Jacquemus x Nike ski pop-up collection, featuring footwear, accessories, and apparel. In a testament to AI’s untapped potential in design, Simonetti’s detailed visuals received more interest than Nike and Jacquemus’ actual collaboration, despite him being far less known in the fashion world. Simonetti views AI as an aid to the creative process rather than a threat, stating that “With AI, each creator has the possibility to evolve any initial idea or sketch into multiple design options by creating unlimited iterations of the same concept.”
The intersection of AI and fashion design is just now being explored, but it promises to be a development with massive creative power, especially when utilized as a supporting rather than a guiding design tool. In December 2022, 14 designers took part in a Fashion x AI show in Hong Kong in which all of the eighty-plus outfits were created by using AI software AiDA, or “AI-based Interactive Design Assistant.” AiDA, officially launched at the Fashion x AI show, was developed with the goal of supporting designers and allowing them to be more efficient. Incorporating technology like image generation and a virtual mood board, AiDA was described by AiDLab CEO Calvin Wong as an “assistant” to designers to help them with collections. Technology like AiDA opens the conversation towards a future of fashion where AI isn’t a menace, but rather a time-saving creative aid.
Whatever the next era of fashion looks like, it seems like AI is here to stay. Only time will tell what role it’ll take in designing the next wave of clothing trends.
While it’s much less talked about than its other uses, AI has slowly been taking over different areas of the fashion industry. A 2020 Industry Wired article predicted that, globally, the fashion and retail industries’ investment in AI would hit $7.3 billion in 2022, which is not a negligible portion of the $1.7 trillion industry. McKinsey’s 2022 State of Fashion Technology Report also endorsed AI as a growing and very lucrative power in the industry, predicting that fashion corporations that use AI in their business models could be rewarded with a 118% overall increase in revenue by 2030.
So how exactly is AI used in the fashion field?
AI is becoming increasingly prevalent in different aspects of the industry, from being incorporated into the design process to helping streamline marketing decisions and supply chain management. Cult-following brands like Dior and Nike have used AI in the past to personalize their customer experience, with Dior creating “Dior Insider,” an AI chatbot that connects to Facebook Messenger, and Nike using AI in their 2017 “On Demand” campaign. With Nike’s campaign helping customers achieve the ethos of the brand and stay active, and Dior’s chatbot giving customers more insight into their products, these initiatives focused mainly on the marketing side of fashion and customer retention.
However, the more revolutionary side of AI and fashion can be seen in the increase in AI-based design. The marriage of AI and design has the potential to help solve a major problem faced by the current industry: the overproduction and consumption of garments. When fashion designers embrace AI algorithms in their creative process, they can predict trends rather than follow them and ensure that their designs will sell in the current market. The melding of AI and design also allows for more customer involvement and specialization towards a brand’s target market, which leads to a more sustainable fashion industry as companies know that their products are sure to be purchased.
One notable company that has made AI an integral part of its business model is ready-to-wear shop Finesse US. Finesse markets itself to its 467,000 Instagram followers as “the first AI-led fashion house where you decide what we produce.” Finesse’s aim is to avoid overproduction and waste and places its creative power and ultimate product selection strongly in the hands of its consumers. Finesse’s design process relies minimally on excessive fabric use: the brand analyzes popular fashion trends via algorithms, uses this information to design three possible outfits that are then 3-D modeled and eventually put to a public vote. Only the most popular outfit is put into production, a tactic that ensures that they have a receptive market for new drops, avoid fabric waste, and engage the brand’s younger, more technologically-savvy customer base.
Finesse US exemplifies how a blend of AI and design can lead to higher customer satisfaction and retention, by leaving a large part of the creative process up to the desires of its shoppers and current trends. However, the decision-making power that the brand relinquishes in its reliance on AI seems to be at the cost of individual creativity. A big fear permeating the creative side of fashion is that AI will not only diminish the human workforce but reduce industry-wide originality, making fashion a game solely based on predicting temporary trends instead of an artistic field.
Given the relative novelty of AI-based fashion design, there’s a lot of uncertainty as to how the industry should navigate these changing waters. Just as fashion isn’t a homogenous creative landscape, the solution to striking a balance between originality and AI isn’t one-size-fits-all. However, there’s great potential for designers to reach new levels of innovation through the technology.
One case is footwear designer Marco Simonetti, whose exclusively digital creations have been a hit on social media. Simonetti and his collective RAL7000STUDIO tap into AI to unleash a futuristic, distinctive creative world. In December 2022, Simonetti posted visuals of his AI-generated take on a Jacquemus x Nike ski pop-up collection, featuring footwear, accessories, and apparel. In a testament to AI’s untapped potential in design, Simonetti’s detailed visuals received more interest than Nike and Jacquemus’ actual collaboration, despite him being far less known in the fashion world. Simonetti views AI as an aid to the creative process rather than a threat, stating that “With AI, each creator has the possibility to evolve any initial idea or sketch into multiple design options by creating unlimited iterations of the same concept.”
The intersection of AI and fashion design is just now being explored, but it promises to be a development with massive creative power, especially when utilized as a supporting rather than a guiding design tool. In December 2022, 14 designers took part in a Fashion x AI show in Hong Kong in which all of the eighty-plus outfits were created by using AI software AiDA, or “AI-based Interactive Design Assistant.” AiDA, officially launched at the Fashion x AI show, was developed with the goal of supporting designers and allowing them to be more efficient. Incorporating technology like image generation and a virtual mood board, AiDA was described by AiDLab CEO Calvin Wong as an “assistant” to designers to help them with collections. Technology like AiDA opens the conversation towards a future of fashion where AI isn’t a menace, but rather a time-saving creative aid.
Whatever the next era of fashion looks like, it seems like AI is here to stay. Only time will tell what role it’ll take in designing the next wave of clothing trends.