New developments and widespread applications of artificial intelligence technologies have created a gold rush that is getting closer to the dot-com boom. Between virtual worlds and AI, no one really seems to want to think about real life anymore. This makes sense; who isn’t attracted to shiny new things?
As founder of AI creative studio Maison Meta, Cyril Foiret is all about the shiny and the new. Last weekend, he launched AI Fashion Week at Spring Studios in New York. In a room on the sixth floor where people in the industry have seen many fashion shows,
screens displayed “runway” images made with various video software. At first glance, many of these look like standard catwalk images, complete with fashion show guests; others, meanwhile, appear to have been shot in a desert or rainforest. Instead of sitting on benches, people were walking around, sipping drinks or taking pictures with their phones, wearing neon wristbands of different colors to indicate they were the media, competitors or the public.
Despite the name and runway images – AI Fashion Week is not actually a fashion week, but rather the launch of a competition. The public can vote for their favorite collections by visiting the AI Fashion Week website and using the web browser on their mobile phones. The top 10 collection will then be judged by a panel of industry experts including Dame Pat McGrath, Vogue Japan Editorial Head of Content Tiffany Godoy and Erika Wykes-Sneyd of Adidas Studio Web3, among others, will select three winners whose work will be produced and sold by Revolve for the real world.
Exterior by Dmitrii Rykunov unisex floral collection.
Image: Courtesy of Dmitrii Rykunov
Image: by Dmitrii Rykunov provided
“The idea is to be a competition similar to the LVMH Prize, where we will introduce new designers,” explains Foiret. “Whether they are already in fashion or not, but by using these tools, they will be able to enter fashion with their aesthetic and ideas.” Foiret believes, “Everyone in fashion will apply AI to their work in some way. process,” but bridging that gap isn’t the only goal of AI Fashion Week. Foiret is equally interested in producing images that he calls “Vogue quality results.” Participants are also encouraged to create street style or backstage images to “provide a more complete vision of [their] and increase [their] chances of being selected for the next round.”
For some entries For designers, the competition is an opportunity to explore beyond the surface of the industry. Dmitrii Rykunov’s dreamy unisex collection features soft suiting pieces: loose jackets and kimonos, roomy high-waisted trousers and sheer trench coats, all in floral prints or with floral embellishments. The designer, who works in management consulting, takes a garment-first approach to creating his collections: he reads garment-construction books for junior fashion designers. “My tip for Midjourney is a detailed description of the garment, including the pattern,” he adds. “I used to say, ‘If I wasn’t in business, I’d be in fashion’.” Now that he’s created the collection, called Blooming Gardens, he wants to launch it as a bespoke business. “Generative AI tools are a great way to generate consistent patterns, allowing you to offer your customers unique garments.”
look from Rachel Koukal’s Dune collection.
Image: Courtesy of Rachel Koukal
Rachel The runway show for Koukal’s collection, titled “Soft Apocalypse,” featured a motley, curvaceous cast of models clad in futuristic bodycon silhouettes, paired with jackets and trousers made from high-tech fabrics to protect against the elements. Koukal is a graphic design and art director who has worked in the fashion industry in the past but was disappointed by its outdated attitude and lack of diversity. “I decided to enter this competition to give myself a deadline to complete the project,” she explained. “I’ve been using Midjourney, and I thought, ‘This is great! I can imagine any type of body I want,’ so I decided I wanted to create a collection that included sizes and shapes.”
Koukal is one of the few designers who can image anything you can imagine with this software. The AI Fashion Week website noted that the models were “alien, if you will,” but most of the collection was shown on the standard very slender, almost always white models. (Indeed, outside Spring Studios, a protester held up a sign denouncing the lack of racial and physical diversity at the event.)
Koukal’s approach is personal . “I feed my own images to Midjourney and then re-prompt them so it comes up with some new ideas based on my own images and cues,” she explains. “I use it to essentially collaborate with myself, but in a way I think it’s almost like you’re working with the collective consciousness of all of humanity, which is a really exciting exploration.”
