Amid all the talk of artificial intelligence usurping the creative industry, there are a fair number of people sitting in fashion studios who know they are on borrowed time.
The truth of the matter is that fashion as a whole functions on trend aggregation, where a smattering of inspiration falls like rain on the high fashion peaks and then flows down through various stages of the market — eventually becoming a fast fashion torrent. This process of riffing on a fad to target your chosen market is the reason we have cohesive trends, but it’s also why some brands achieve a degree of individuality.
Mercifully, the human body presents enough challenges to ensure that most of the design team is safe — for now at least. Using AI to put together a mood board and visualize an idea is possible, but having the ability to filter through it balancing fabric weight, movement and color requires a bit of, well, fashion sense. Automated production and visualization tools, like those used for scaling clothing patterns, have existed for decades without destabilizing the fashion system.