The month of April started with enthusiasm for another upcoming fashion week that is nothing like the others and a first in history. The name of it speaks for itself: AI Fashion Week.
What is AI Fashion Week? The project is a collaborative, limit-free version of the fashion week we know, removing boundaries and providing a new understanding of “abstract” and technology’s place in fashion. But, instead of a show, it has been created by “Revolve” and “Maison Meta” as a competition that anyone who knows the tools to showcase their talents via Artificial Intelligence. They also created an AI Fashion Incubator, and three winner’s designs will be produced and sold in the Summer of 2023.
In this reading, we’ll explore what we expect versus what happens/happened in AI Fashion Week, what are the insights from it, and how we can shape our approach to fashion.
Image Credit: AI Fashion Week
EXPECTATIONS: High but obscure
- Business Expectations:
This could be a revolution of AI’s entrance into the e-commerce world.
One of the significant goals of AI Fashion Week is that it creates a new market for immersive designs, engaging with consumers in a new way as people become more familiar with the clothing designed with AI tech, resulting in a change in taste and preference for a given audience that industry should keep an eye on.
While adding a new design perspective, AI tools facilitate production and creative processes, and bring a unique point of view resulting in more sustainable operations. McKinsey's statements show that AI might bring between $150-$275 billion in operating profits for the fashion and luxury industry in the following years.
Even though business expectations have more long-term goals, the project will provide us some clues of impact when the winners have been selected and the garments were produced and sold via Revolve.com. Then, we will have the data to understand the consumer-aim towards ai based clothing in real life.
- Technology Expectations: Bringing a realistic and more positive approach to AI tools
The motive of AIFW proving AI is not just an abstract tool that belongs to the digital world, but also could assist the realization of abstract and unique creations and could be used as a common tool for the fashion industry. Mixing virtual and physical realities is expected to prove the potential of AI in a more realistic and utopian way to the industry. It showcases how AI could be effective when it is used as a tool – while giving people a wider audience and dreamland to engage with.
- Creative Expectations: No boundaries, More resources
Designers have the opportunity to cross boundaries and expand possibilities with AI technology and techniques. AI is more accessible for younger people that have no sufficient assets. AI tools could be used from anywhere and allow more people to take place in the fashion world.
It is also more clear now that the entrance of virtual technologies to the fashion world won’t make these technologies take the job from humans in the near future. Instead, AI tools will be presented as an assistant which develops a new perspective and new dimension towards “fashion design”. This perspective has fewer 3D boundaries and is more abstract but AI Fashion Week founders want to ensure this limitlessness is applicable to reality combined with real human perspective.
Image Credit: AI Fashion Week
REALITY: Surprising while just as expected
Even though it is an ongoing project, and it is rather a competition that we could vote on than a show, after all, the designers submitted their works, we could see some expectations were actually met or we realized that some of the results were interesting to see.
- Business Realities:
As we stated before, business expectations are more long-term considering the AI Fashion Week, but the clear interpretation would be that it will help to market to expand with new emerging designers and additional projects.
Maison Meta is started to plan physical runway shows with winning AI designs, and the incubator program will bring new designers on the spot that could be ground-breaking and highly competitive.
In addition, the participants were 400 people from different business backgrounds, illustrating the ongoing attention to new AI and design projects, and eager to learn them.
- Tech Realities:
AI may not be used solely as a tool for the design process for now, since it still has some weak muscles technology-wise. For instance, it is observed that AI is so powerful to create knitted pieces, but could use more updates for belts (Figure 1). Still, if you know the technology of many of the competitors, AI gives such images and pieces that are impossible to distinguish (Figure 2).
(Figure 1) (Figure 2)
- Creative Reality: Knowledge is your sketchbook
We saw that even if technology gives all the possibilities to designers, it is still crucial to give the right direction to it to get the expected result if we would like to embed AI in fashion creation processes.
Such as “asking the right question to Google”, designers, or everyone, should understand how to give the right command to an AI tool to make their dream work come true. So, this time, it is not how you move your pen on a screen or on paper, but it is about what your prompts are. Thus, during the competition, it is highly clear that technological know-how is more likely to become one of the key requirements for fashion designers – besides the design tools we know in the near future.
Participants a.k.a. Everyone
Apparently, competitors were expected to have a design background, however, not all of them were in the fashion business full-time. Approximately, 60% of participants used the Midjourney platform to create their garments, and anyone who has the knowledge of how to use mid-journey and enter the prompts necessary could showcase their pieces in AI Fashion Week, and also even become one of the winners if they have this creative uniqueness in them.
This illustrates how the fashion world could be more collective with AI technology by bringing more people to add more unique perspectives to it.
Body Taboos in Fashion – somehow – Preserved Its Space
Although it was stated in the AI Fashion Week guidelines that the models could even be aliens, many participants used very thin, tall, and primarily white models while creating their pieces. This interestingly illustrates that the fashion world has some strict perspective when it comes to body expectations to show a garment, and this could be hard to break. On the contrary, as an inspiring example, Rachel Koukal’s project called “Soft Apocalypse,” was a combination of diverse model figures of mostly curvy, and from different ethnicities.
Image Credit: Rachel Koukal, Soft Apocalypse
Apparently, the self-love movement should continue in a more inclusive and sincere way through fashion campaigns so that people could feel freer to reflect their body and their dreams.
(İpek Kumtepe: Orientalism BDSM) (Vanessa Camacaro: Chromadelic Dreamscape)
As we witness more AI improvements, the fashion industry seems to discover more new perspectives and opportunities to turn these technologies into profit, while bringing new creative dimensions. Even though it's still an emerging approach, it's exciting to see how AI developments create new opportunities, and growth areas and shapes the fashion industry in a more innovative way.
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