In an unlimited north London photo studio, large-scale prints from handbag brand Misela's latest campaign hang from a trellis overhead. In one photo, a blonde model sits on a cognac-colored leather sofa next to a black-and-gray tote bag, a classic Manhattan skyscraper scene visible through the windows behind her. In one other, a girl in a black dress sits in a Venetian gondola on the misty Grand Canal. Guests pause before the pairings, murmuring concerning the lighting, the sets, the luggage, until someone smiles and leans forward to make the massive reveal: “Amazing, isn't it? And you understand, it's all AI.”
Artificial intelligence, increasingly utilized in search, e-commerce and customer support in the style industry, can be making inroads into marketing. Models walking in Coperni's show at Paris Fashion Week last September wore Humane's AI Pin, a wearable multimodal device with communication, image capture and digital assistance applications. Brands like Etro, Moncler, Mango, Valentino, Pandora, Revolve and Misela have used generative AI to advertise recent collections and create images that spark conversations. More recently, AI influencers have develop into a focus for conversations about inclusion and representation in fashion media.
The use of AI raises questions on who advantages from it and what real representation looks like. “Everyone knows that AI means something essential for the long run,” says Marco De Vincenzo, creative director of Etro.
For the brand's Spring 2024 campaign, he worked with digital artist and prompt designer Silvia Badalotti to put in writing text prompts that may generate otherworldly “spaces” as backdrops for his designs. The result: “models” in greenhouses, astrological maps, and pastel-colored terraced structures not unlike the sets of a palace. None of this was real; the models and the sets were the product of detailed written prompts fed into a picture AI platform, while the garments were photographed and later inserted into the pictures.
De Vincenzo finds the “infinite possibilities” of AI inspiring. “From a creative perspective, it's been amazing,” he says. “It changes reality, but that's what every creative person tries to do. It's our job daily to try to interrupt out and experiment. Sometimes reality isn't enough.”
Being on the forefront of latest technologies shouldn’t be without its challenges. When Mango used generative AI to provide a campaign to advertise a set for its teen line, one of the vital difficult features was “using the technology in a way that stayed true to our core aesthetic,” says Jordi Álex Moreno, the brand's chief information technology officer. “We needed to be sure that the editorial quality of the ultimate images matched our standard fashion campaigns.”
They achieved this by involving representatives from the design, art and styling, data and photography teams within the project, somewhat than making it a purely digital project. “It's an important example of collaboration between human, hand-crafted intelligence and digital intelligence,” notes Álex, adding: “AI should function a co-pilot to extend the abilities and creativity of our employees and speed up repetitive tasks so teams can spend more time on value-added work.”
In fact, AI can create realistic images in minutes – and even seconds – in comparison with the months it could normally take to create a campaign with photoshoots, reshoots and post-production. Misela's handbag campaign for the corporate's fifteenth anniversary featured images of 15 women carrying the corporate's handbags in 15 different cities. “We desired to take the luggage and the ladies on a world tour,” says Misela founder Serra Türker.
The campaign took a complete of two and a half months to provide. Türker estimates that a more traditional implementation would have cost at the least 15 to twenty times more.
Türker created mood boards for the campaign, just as she would for an everyday photoshoot. Then Alphan Eşeli, filmmaker, screenwriter, photographer and founding father of creative agency Istanbul 74, wrote prompts for Midjourney, a generative image AI platform. Incorporating a faithful representation of the handbags into the AI images required a hybrid approach. A product photographer photographed the luggage individually; a digital retouch artist then inserted them into each scene, replacing the AI-generated placeholders.
For Eşeli, it is vital that viewers understand that the pictures are AI-driven and never entirely AI-generated. “AI remains to be unable – and hopefully never might be – to create without human commands. It relies on human ideas,” he says. “Like any type of creation, it starts with an idea. If you don't have an idea, AI won't create one for you. AI is only a tool.”
There is a few aesthetic overlap in all three campaigns. The models have the identical uncanny poreless skin and promote the identical ultra-thin ideal of beauty. Their ethnicity is ambiguous, but seems to have been chosen with broad representation in mind. Backgrounds can appear suggested somewhat than defined; there’s a blurriness that could make the pictures seem like they got here from a virtually forgotten dream. Hands, when visible, don't look quite human. Looking at an AI image may be an unsettling experience; the whole lot is simply too smooth. “AI creates a near-perfect image,” says Eşeli, “which may be great (but) can be boring at times.”
Some audiences find generative AI campaigns a turn-off because they see them as an attempt to scale back or eliminate the involvement of annoying humans. Last yr Levi's faced backlash after announcing it could use AI-generated models to extend “the number and variety of our models.” In July, London-based SheerLuxe faced similar backlash when it introduced an AI-generated fashion and lifestyle editor. The editor, dubbed Reem Bot, was met with widespread dismay from online commenters, criticizing the platform's leadership for creating an influencer of color somewhat than increasing the team's diversity by hiring an actual human.
Privately, many creatives and their representatives worry concerning the impact of AI. “I feel sorry for the models,” said one woman on the Misela event. “Are all of them going to lose their jobs?” Others, nonetheless, argue that there’ll all the time be a spot for human-origin creativity.
“Regardless of technological advances, creatives will all the time be the driving forces that set the trends for the whole industry,” says Kent Belden, founder and CEO of The Only Agency, which represents fashion stylists, makeup artists, photographers and other creatives. The lots of of individuals involved in producing a single music video can't get replaced by a machine, he says. “Each of those people has their very own visions. Figuring out easy methods to bring those visions together shouldn’t be something that may be automated.”
Generative AI remains to be an experimental exception somewhat than the rule in the style industry. “It's advancing so quickly,” says Eşeli. For their recent campaigns, each Etro and Misela have collaborated with photographers again; Mango has two more generative AI campaigns within the works for its teen line. But with McKinsey predicting that generative AI will add $150 billion to $275 billion to operating profits over the subsequent three to 5 years, driven by marketing, it's almost certain that there's more to come back.
“The neatest thing I learned while working on this campaign was the importance of the human touch in the method,” says De Vincenzo. “AI is just a brand new strategy to express creativity. Why not use it?”
