John Galliano fashions
Which poses a greater threat to fashion? The cult of personality as illustrated by formerly disgraced high fashion bad boy John Galliano (the newly revealed subject for next year’s Met Gala exhibition), or the culture of AI driven technology with designs plucked from an algorithm of “customers’ social media activity and internet searches factored in with Hailey Bieber’s latest outfits… spitting out 300 styles a month made cheaply in China,” (thanks Amy Odell for The New York Times).
Let’s focus on the latter for the moment since “fashion slop,” as Ms. Odell has termed it, seems to be where this is going, like it or not. AI has finally come for fashion, much as Amazon did not that many years ago, when their focus was primarily on selling books and household appliances.
Cher’s Computer-Generated Closet, photo by Instagram
ChatGPT (plagued with errors) gave way to Claude, who recently birthed a fashion studio, so all bets are off. As Claude claws a path to creating an updated version of Cher’s “Clueless” closet and has designs on outfitting the populace, how worried should we be? Many of us select our OOTD’s depending on factors as varied as the weather, how much walking we’ll be doing, and a certain je ne sais quoi known as our mood – not sure you can keep up with what’s going on in our psyches there, “I Claudius.”
Fun fact: Anthropic’s golden boy was named after Claude Shannon (1916-2001), “a famous American mathematician and engineer known as the father of information technology” according to Google. Ironically, Anthropic actually comes from the Greek word “anthropos,” meaning “human.” See what I did there? I’m sure you’re aware that a Google search produces an AI answer as its opening salvo. How Meta!
Claude Shannon, photo from Instagram
Some Millennials and a lot of Gen Z’ers are addicted to using AI for everything from social interaction, including texting a crush, to figuring out how to design their living spaces. “Don’t you do anything without Claude?” I recently asked my niece. “Doesn’t your boyfriend get jealous?” Her response: “Why do it the hard way when I can make a robot do it? Plus Claude never tells me to shut up haha.”
Even some of my contemporaries have fallen for AI. A boutique manager on the Upper East Side uses Blend to select digitally created models to generate fashion videos for Insta for five-second videos that loop two to three times. She selects the outfit from the store to put on the “model”; however, the app does not select the music, which she chooses herself. Yes, it’s a bit of “uncanny valley” for me, but it gets the job done more easily than booking a real person.
Palantir blue chore coat, photo by ChatGPT
Last weekend’s WSJ Style & Fashion article entitled “A Softer Side of Artificial Intelligence” featured OpenAI’s foray into lifestyle products otherwise known as “nerd merch” or “taste slop.” As of mid-July, the creator of ChatGPT is now hawking (and apparently selling out) shirts, shorts, tote bags, water bottles, socks and (Bill Cunningham would roll in his grave) Palantir blue chore coats for $239! via their company online store, Supply Co.
AI Task Rabbit Stemware Ad (Reddit)
As fashion continues its slide into corporate product designed by a committee of non-humans to cut costs and maximize profits, discerning tastemakers will gravitate even more toward vintage fashion for quality and design. Manhattan Vintage’s tagline “The future of fashion is vintage” is certainly prescient and will just become more appealing until that avenue is eventually exhausted.
There is a vintage show just about every weekend now, which indicates the popularity of the past over the present (and future) homogenization of fashion. Rather than “learn to code,” perhaps the new buzzwords should be “learn to sew.”
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Marilyn, You look absolutely fabulous! And this Elsa Schiaparelli bag !!!! We have met a few times at different events.…
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