The current buzzword ‘AI’ – or artificial intelligence – is putting fashion in the spotlight this week. The occasion is the first AI Fashion Week (AIFW) organized by Maison Meta. It takes place from April 20th to 21st and a large number of participants will present their digitally controlled collections on the machine-created stage.
What started as a small Instagram campaign has quickly grown into a two-day event that will take place at New York’s Spring Studios, where the world-renowned New York Fashion Week is usually held. Now the venue will host Maison Meta’s creations, captivating the company’s growing community as well as those just intrigued by the concept of mechanical creation. Although there will be no physical catwalks at this edition, visitors can view a curated exhibition of AI collections as well as attend panel discussions that explore the concept and how this technology can be used in the creative process in depth.
At the heart of the initiative is a competition for which around 350 entries have already been received and which consists of two phases: In the first phase, the public can vote online for their favorite designers. Ten finalists are selected, who then have to present their creations to a jury in a second phase. Although still in its infancy, AI Fashion Week has already attracted a number of high-profile personalities from the fashion world to judge, including Erike Wykes-Sneyd, Vice President of Adidas’ Three Stripes Studio; Natalie Hazzout, Head of Male Casting at Celine; Make-up artist Pat McGrath and Tiffany Godoy, head of editorial content at Vogue Japan.
Winners will develop their own brands via Revolve Incubator
Another member of the jury is Michael Mente, CEO and co-founder of e-tailer Revolve, which is a main partner of AI Fashion Week. The fashion company will support the award for the three winning designers, who will each participate in a fashion and technology incubator that will help them launch their own brand and produce their AI collections. All winners get access to Revolve’s in-house studio in Los Angeles, where patterns and collections are developed, which are then sold on the company’s e-commerce platform.
In order to enter the competition, applicants had to follow a number of guidelines, such as creating images of the quality you would see in a publication like Vogue. In addition, not only the collection but also the environment had to be right. Therefore, participants were asked to submit images from beyond the catwalk, such as a fictional backstage area, the front row and the streets outside, to fully capture the brand identity and vision.
Since the goal is ultimately to produce the garments, an important prerequisite was that the designs can actually be implemented. While the applicants were encouraged to explore different creative avenues, they were also reminded of the important aspect that the designs must be feasible with the available funds.
“We should emphasize here that what we do is very different from Web3 and the Metaverse. Both initially promised to boost the creative industries, which we didn’t really see,” Cyril Foiret, Maison Meta’s founder and creative director, tells FashionUnited. “With this competition we want to show that the creative industries really work in practice. Participation in the competition was free, which broadened the field of participants, and Revolve is really about harnessing the creativity of designers and enabling them to create a brand and grow with the support of an e-commerce giant to make money.”
The applicants for the competition come from a wide range of professions – from lawyers to students to user experience (UX) designers – and in terms of age – from 16 to 68 years. The same applies to the participants of the event in New York, to which representatives from companies such as Cartier, Google, Spotify and MasterCard are expected.
“We see these AI tools as a democratization of creativity, especially in the field of fashion,” comments Nima Abbasi, partner at Maison Meta, when asked about the reach. “It’s really about paving the creative field, and in the end, like all good things, the people with the greatest creativity and imagination will prevail. You don’t need teams or training in this field. You just need a lot of imagination and a sense of what a collection could look like.”
Maison Meta wants to clear up misinformation about AI
For Maison Meta, AIFW is not only about fostering creativity, but also about supporting this form of technology throughout a company’s value chain. The AI creative studio hopes others will feel inspired to use this technology as well, with fashion week not being the latest initiative. Artificial intelligence is still in its infancy and offers a variety of benefits, many of which have yet to be explored. While human presence and skills can never be replaced, the use of such technology can speed up production processes, provide a constant source of inspiration and reduce the need for extensive resources to create a collection. This, in turn, allows designers to divert their attention to other areas and give them the time to focus on craft work that requires human skills.
Despite these elements, conversations around the topic continue to go in circles, often with a sense of hesitation about AI and its possible significance for the future. Maison Meta officials are aware of this and hope that fashion week and their plans for the future will ease some of that skepticism. Abbasi notes, “As with many elements of technology, sometimes the hesitancy comes from not knowing what’s possible. A big part of our job is helping people understand how this works to get all the misinformation out of the way because the reality is different. Compared to other areas of digitization, such as Web3, where there was a lot of hype initially but very few people actually implemented anything, we see that the application of AI is much more immediate. The results have a greater impact.”
Maison Meta will continue to play a leading role in promoting the development of artificial intelligence. As for the next steps, Foiret anticipates that this technology will increasingly become available for video as well, while there could also be more accessible types of platforms offering AI services. This is an area where Maison Meta wants to be active itself. The company is currently working on building its own AI platform, although it is still a young, small studio. While information about the platform is still limited, Foiret said it is likely intended for private use and will be offered to clients or internal purposes as a resource primarily intended to facilitate entry into the sector.
In the meantime, however, the company will primarily focus on AI Fashion Week. While the event is taking place in a physical format, those interested can access the app or website to view and vote for the entries of the top 30 contestants in the competition that will be on display as part of the AIFW. In the coming weeks, the finalists will be announced via the website and then continue to develop their brands as part of the Revolve incubator.
This article originally appeared on FashionUnited.uk. Translated and edited by Simone Preuss.