FUTURE-PROOFING FASHION WEEK

DOES Fashion Week'S FUTURE depend on how AI is applied to design?

By Eric Brain

As the decade turned, the world grappled with a global pandemic, political instability, and the rise of a digital revolution that promised to redefine human connection. Among these turbulent times emerged a wave of Web3 optimism, a utopian vision of a hyper-connected future. Physical spaces grew increasingly limited, yet virtual ones expanded, offering digital showcases and online avatars for users to express themselves. Yet, what was heralded as “The New World We’re Living In” soon faded, revealing a longing for tangible, real-world experiences technology wasn’t able to replicate.

Fashion’s early faith in AI was foiled by its unfamiliarity. How could the industry, steeped in tradition, communicate these unorthodox ideals to a luxury audience that valued tactile connection? Critics slammed digital shows for their glaringly obvious lack of human interaction, arguing that clothes of an atelier calibre command more than one of the six senses to resonate. Sight alone was insufficient to convey the stories that houses aimed to tell, as immersive smells, sensations, sounds, and tastes (in more ways than one), combined with onlookers’ intuition, contribute to the experience of a live show, never fully captured through a screen.

For a fashion brand to master technological integration, it must transcend these aforementioned technological fads. Coperni, under Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, seized the challenge with a masterstroke: a Fabrican dress sprayed directly onto Bella Hadid in real time. It was a spectacle that echoed Lee Alexander McQueen’s seminal Spring/Summer 1999 No. 13 show, where car manufacturing robots sprayed Shalom Harlow in black and yellow paint—an act which became the blueprint for groundbreaking runway revelry, and subsequently paved the way for technology to influence the catwalk. The moment demonstrated McQueen’s then-divisive ability to challenge norms, not provocative for provocation’s sake, but an expression of pre-virality artistic freedom that went against the industry’s stuffy expectations.

Case in point: Courrèges sent models down the runway mid-doomscroll; Issey Miyake dressed them via drones; Schiaparelli crafted motherboard couture; Diesel backdropped its set with a giant Zoom Call; and Loewe brought the silver screen to life, vis-à-vis a deepsea fish television coat. Even more recently, Duran Lantink’s Spring/Summer 2025 runway featured a selfie camera dress. You remember these shows, because they are each a study of current socio-political tropes: a culture obsessed with TikTok shows up in the looks.

More in this vein: The latest Paris Couture Week saw Maison Valentino look back to the future, with 8-bit essays detailing the presented looks. The ever-forward-thinking Viktor & Rolf debuted its Couture SS25 offering to the tune of AI-generated French-adjacent linguistic convergence. Balenciaga, under Demna, consistently pushes technological boundaries: for Winter 2024, the brand offered collection notes via voicemail before transforming the runway into a CGI-enhanced digital gallery, featuring dystopian cityscapes that comment on viral video entrapment. Balenciaga had previously sent cracked iPhone 6s as invitations, collaborated with Bang & Olufsen for a haute couture tech handbag, and incorporated augmented reality into its SS25 show, with Apple's now-discontinued Vision Pro headset—blurring the lines between the physical and virtual realms. Unlike the web-based digital shows of the early 2020s, this AR experience bridged the physical and virtual realms, creating a multi-sensory journey that meshed fashion and technology seamlessly.

AI, once reserved for niche sectors, has now infiltrated both high-street and high-end fashion. A recent Mango Teen campaign, featuring all AI-generated imagery, appeals to a digitally connected audience by the way of moodboarding #OutfitInspo. Alternatively, Etro’s Spring 2024 campaign fed AI image-making platforms with descriptions of pre-existing, physical photography, creating an uncanny valley perspective of the world we know. Similarly, Louis Vuitton opted to capitalize on youth culture with contemporary riffs on Murakami’s Superflat short films, inspiring campaigns that blended IRL models with CGI graphics as an exercise in phygital marketing. In Prada’s SS25 womenswear show notes, Mrs. Prada and Raf Simons concluded that “we exist in an era of extreme information, immersed in a constant stream of content.” They thus designed a collection that feeds the algorithm with space-age references, à la Pierre Cardin—holographic mini skirts, bug-eyed sunglasses, and porthole bucket hats, to name a few.

To look forward, the industry has had to look back. For instance, Monsieur Dior’s New Look, circa 1947, pioneered techniques in pattern cutting that are employed to this day. Designers like Kim Jones have found a way to adapt them to menswear, combining old methods with new techniques to make something previously unseen. Similarly, Demna’s Balenciaga uses futuristic materials, fabric manipulation, sculpting, and eco-friendly constructions to reimagine timeless silhouettes, looking back to take fashion forward with AI and technological advancements in tow.

In conjunction with this is an omnipresent sustainability battle, also inspiring technological solutions. An anti-waste ethos informed Diesel’s most recent show in Milan, with thousands of tons of would-be discarded denim scraps littering the stadium-sized runway. At various major houses, QR codes coupled with blockchain data provide transparency and educate customers, show attendees, and the wider industry on where their clothes come from—starting from the fibers and ending in your closet.

So, while AI’s imprint may not always be visible to the naked eye, it is poised to play a significant role in the future of fashion. Smart factories are developing future-proofed textiles, while automated pattern-making and stitching reduce both time and waste. Iris van Herpen’s mastery of zero-waste design, powered by AI and 3D printing, highlights this potential. However, the impact of AI and 3D on craft is often debated—it may enhance or threaten it, depending on one’s viewpoint.

Olivier Rousteing’s Balmain is a prime example, however, of the possibility of integrating AI and craft. Having introduced 3D avatars of its clients, rendering the made-to-measure couture process as straightforward as choosing a Sims outfit, Balmain uses AI to make the couture process feel a bit more relevant today. Jacqeumus, on the other hand, used the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s Super Zoom to offer fans relatable insight into the inner workings of a major label, simultaneously flexing its digital marketing prowess and demonstrating a willingness to use unconventional methods to create fashion stories that defy luxury traditions.

For Fall/Winter 2025, in London, Milan, and Paris, we ponder the next frontier of fashion and technology. Coperni, ever adept at balancing spectacle with substance, eschews the distant “AI takeover” narrative by hosting a LAN party-inspired runway show in March, evoking the nostalgic promise of a future once imagined. Last season, heritage leather label Delvaux explored e-ink color-changing bags, an evolution that’s sure to come to fruition this season for a handful of its most esteemed clients.

Across these cities will arise a sea of AI-powered designers, reinventing (what some argue to be) a stagnant creative industry with new methods and tools for garment-making. We can expect Yusuke Takahashi’s CFCL to push the envelope with 3D knitwear, and runway shows to increasingly leverage AI-powered backdrops: think immersive, digital environments akin to the Las Vegas Sphere. Further, we can rely on AMO’s set design for Prada, a partnership that pushes the boundaries of tech and artistry, transporting us to an Orwellian fashion utopia reflective of Mrs. Prada and Simons’s now-signature retro-futuristic aesthetic (à la SS24’s slime show, or FW24’s study on the dichotomy between nature and a turn-of-the-millenium office, which is sure to reemerge this season).

In the era of the algorithm, everything is awarded its five minutes of fame. While John Galliano’s final Maison Margiela Artisanal collection, renowned for that Pat McGrath make-up and Leon Dame’s walk, proved it doesn’t need a tech-laden stunt to go viral, the secret to virality is genius marketing, for better or for worse. And at the moment, AI is an easy tool to lean on. Jacquemus leads the pack in this regard, with its instantly-recognizable bags draped over trams in Paris, or the aforementioned iPhone campaign, accessible and appealing to the core consumer.

Greater connectivity and interaction—a brand-consumer-tech threeway—will drive buzz for future shows. If a collection isn’t infused with tech—say, Maison Margiela Artisanal—at least fashionphiles can recreate the looks on TikTok, transforming the runway into User Generated Content for us all to join in on. On the other hand, if a show is brimming with technological bells and whistles, it could become gimmicky, capturing our waning attention spans for the five minutes brands (unfortunately) need to stay relevant.

2020’s fear of AI taking over—Web3 “opening our eyes” to a digital world better than the “real” world before it—will not prevail in seasons to come. The future, it seems, will be shaped not by a virtual utopia, but by the marriage of AI and technology with fashion’s enduring tactile, human-centered essence. The remainder of this Fashion Month holds promise for designs that advance sustainability, practicality, innovation, and—most importantly—a touch of awe-inspiring glamour. What will shine in London, Milan, and Paris is the potential of AI as a means to push designers further.