Artificial intelligence is turning the fashion industry upside down

Canadian fashion photographer Chris Nicholls recently conducted an experiment on Instagram in which he posted 10 pictures of a young woman dressed in a series of Baroque costumes and wearing a very odd head covering.

In one shot, model Scarlett Johansson doppelganger has a red crustacean sitting on her head. In another image, a lobster claw protrudes from a white skullcap decorated with Chantilly lace, flowers and fluffy white feathers. The images are highly stylized, surreal and thought provoking.

But they weren’t created with cameras, models, stylists, or hair and makeup artists. Instead, it’s machine-generated: Nicholls is experimenting with a new artificial intelligence platform called Midjourney, which uses text descriptions to create AI-generated images that almost look like real photos.

Similar to ChatGPT, which is capable of generating complex written responses based on a few words, Nicolls uses cues such as dramatic lighting, baroque dresses, white flowers, lobster shells and beautiful women. In 15 minutes, he has 30 visuals generated by AI software by searching through his vast database.

After toying with the Midjourney that Nicolls also used to create the female visual on the cover of the Pursuits section of The Globe and Mail (see below right), he concluded that the possibilities of the technology were astonishing as well as threatening. On one hand, he is fascinated by what this new era of generative AI can generate in the twinkling of an eye. On the other hand, he is angry that creating art stands on the shoulders of unnamed artists and photographers whose work is downloaded for free.

I am conflicted, says Nicholls, who over the past four decades has photographed some of the world’s most famous people including Kate Moss, Claudia Schiffer, Olivia Wilde and Taylor Swift. The software is still pretty clunky and, at times, behaves like a toddler, jumping around the map like a kid in a candy store.

In one of her drawing experiments, the model lost an ear. However, he was confident it would work, most likely at lightning speed. And when that happens, she and many others in the fashion business worry that creative work will change dramatically, or worse, be displaced.

Over the last five to 10 years, fashion companies have struggled to keep up with the massive demand for content that is being asked of them on social media and other platforms, says Nicholls. As technology gets faster and smarter, brands will look to generative AI as a tool with the potential to create massive amounts of content at a fraction of the cost.

And while some in the industry have expressed concern about potential job losses due to AI, Nicolls thinks that sentiment is naïve.

The train had already left the station. If you are 22 years old and want to be in the fashion industry my advice is to do this as soon as possible because that is what fashion companies want.

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A New York-based model and futurist agrees.

Until recently, we wrongly assumed that creative roles and tasks were uniquely human. That made sense for most of human history, but that’s no longer the case, says Sinead Bovell, a Canadian who researches new technologies and educates people about their capabilities through her startup, WAYE.

AI will eventually take my job as a model. Models and digital influencers are already making their way into the fashion industry from all angles, including in e-commerce, which supports the entire micro-economy of photographers, stylists, hair and makeup.

While it’s still early days for art and image makers like Midjourney and its rivals DALL-E and Stable Diffusion, Bovell sees a day in the near future when digital photo shoots will become commonplace, producing covers for top fashion magazines as well as glossy brand ads in all social media platforms.

The fashion industry has moved beyond physical reality. During Paris Mens Fashion Week in January, French sunglasses brand Vuarnet relied on generative AI to create a look book. Retailers like Replicant and DressX only sell digital clothing. There are digital-only modeling agencies like Digitalals. Generated Photos website allows users to create their own models with human faces. The fashion show has been staged in the Metaverse. Even Marilyn Monroe has been revived as a virtual model to show off the latest digital fashion from Balenciaga and Miu Miu.

As AI continues to evolve, more applications will emerge, predicts Kosta Koukoravas, founder and chief executive of London-based Intelistyle. His company uses AI-powered styling to personalize the fashion retailer’s customer experience by styling their customers with the right clothes and outfits, online and in-store.

AI learns from all the examples out there. It could produce something new that hasn’t been seen before based on what happened in the past, he said.

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Brands such as Zara, H&M, Dior, Macys and Nike are all using AI in their business models, said Koukoravas, who added technological advances will soon allow brands to create realistic images of virtual garments and accessories based on customer requests and fashion trends. Brands will then share these high-quality visuals with consumers via social media or e-commerce platforms to get feedback before sending clothing designs to manufacturers potentially reducing the 13 million tonnes of textile waste that ends up in landfills each year.

For example, last October, Cala, a one-stop platform for clothing designing and manufacturing, launched a new tool powered by DALL-E that can generate new clothing designs from text descriptions.

What does all this mean for the future of fashion? Koukoravas sums it up in two words: great opportunity.

Creative teams will be able to use AI to come up with new designs, even involving end users and consumers in the process. You can imagine whatever you like and ask the AI ​​to build it with you. In addition, it will help fashion and e-commerce to be more personalized. Suddenly, you can see an image of yourself in the dress.

This is a great opportunity to make fashion more inclusive, more relevant to you. Not only can you see the model wearing this outfit, but you can see someone who looks like you wearing this outfit.

By 2030, Price Waterhouse Cooper estimates that AI will add nearly US$16 trillion in value to the global economy each year. For fashion brands, harnessing the power of AI to accelerate growth exponentially will soon become a vital operational task, said Henry Navarro, associate professor at the Metropolitan University of Toronto’s School of Fashion. Even if AI-generated fashion images and virtual photo shoots don’t become mainstream in 2023, Navarro believes more fashion businesses will experiment with it, eventually paving the way for adoption.

No industry has the luxury of staying the same, or even slowing down these days, he said. I empathize with people working in fashion who fear losing their jobs to AI. But that fear has been expressed before. They are the same fears that painters had when photography came along. The ones film photographers had when digital came along, and the ones professional photographers had when everyone started carrying iPhones.

In each instance, their profession is not lost, however, they must adapt to a new world with new possibilities.

The consensus among fashion watchers is that a major industrial upheaval is likely within five to 10 years. However, the next generation of text AI has opened a Pandora’s box of ethical, economic, and legal questions. Lawsuits have already begun, with stock photo provider Getty Images the latest to sue Stability AI Inc. for abusing its more than 12 million photos to train a Stable Diffusion image generation system.

For now, Nicolls feels confident his job is secure especially since generative AI still has a lot to learn.

At this stage, it’s like fishing for a beautiful image in a murky pond, he said. You bait and keep pulling pictures until he finds something beautiful but he may not have hair or a nose, or he may have four ears.

I spent two days sitting in front of the computer creating the drawings I made for this newspaper. The process is very interesting, but I would not describe it as fun.

Nicholls also recognizes that AI may have a devastating effect on his industry, but he wants to believe that eventually humans will still want to hire other humans for the experience of working with that person.

I became a photographer to travel and experience life with other people. I hope to have many more.