There is a very real fear in the creative industries that generative artificial intelligence will create further barriers in an already exclusive workforce. It is clear that these technologies are going to be more intimately involved in working activities, so should we be leaning into them? If we look towards the fashion industry, we can see how AI could actually improve labour conditions to allow for more creative endeavours to take place. 

I am not going to claim that jobs won’t be threatened, because that’s not true. What can be said is that so much of our lives (and all of our careers) is spent carrying out useless tasks and administration – or slamming our heads in our desk drawers as we’re asked to fill out another form. These “bullshit jobs” ¹ leave workers feeling unfulfilled, creating draining spaces rather than creative hubs. By implementing AI, it alleviates the need to fulfil these mindless tasks. Not only will workers be saved from having to do it, but there is a gap for money to be reinvested into stimulating creative work². Over 75% of fashion executives are involving AI in their businesses, with at least 60% of its usage being in marketing (whether copywriting or creative visual content, etc.). We have seen a new form of communication be formed, creating a new visual language³. This can be seen in the viral Jacquemus campaign, of the oversized Bambino bags that cruised down the Parisian streets, or Casablanca’s S/S 23 that was entirely AI generated, with the ‘Futuro Optimisto’ theme. These campaigns have overlying absurdist and surrealist themes that more often appeal to younger demographics. This new absurd and digital fashion landscape can also be seen as an influence from Asia⁴, as their economic growth has placed China as the primary consumers for luxury fashion⁵. As the creation of these campaigns still require heavy human input and thought, can we just consider it to be another tool to create? An AI could not gather all these complexities on its own. That being said, these technologies are not faultless. Anything that is manmade is created with a certain idea instilled in it⁶ and AI has heavy data biases at its core. Campaigns that are created with generative AI will revert to fashion’s bad habits, after the small strides being made in inclusivity in recent years⁷. What these new ‘helpers’ are being trained on is making them think that the input “woman in a dress” is a thin, white woman. This then returns us to the original issue, of having a human manually correct this with repetitive feedback and whether it would have been simpler/better to just cast a real life model. 

So will fashion be saved by AI? No. Fashion will be saved by people. What I think the rise of artificial intelligence will do in this industry is push the human imagination to another limit. In an already ruthless landscape, it will become more brutal. We will be seeing that 2024 will have accelerated use of generative technologies, but human creativity will be more in demand than ever.

¹David Graeber “Bullshit Jobs” 2018 

²https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/the-economic-potential-of-generative-ai-the-next-productivity-frontier#introduction

³https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/marketing-pr/why-surrealist-marketing-is-suddenly-everywhere/

⁴https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11366-022-09817-z

⁵https://www. mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategyand-corporate-finance/our-insights/ global-economics-intelligenceexecutive-summary-august-2023

⁶Langdon Winner “Do Artefacts Have Politics?” 1980

⁷https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/technology/how-generative-ai-could-perpetuate-fashions-biases/