The influence of AI has been felt throughout industries from Hollywood to publishing – and now it’s come for modelling. H&M introduced final week that it might create AI “twins” of 30 fashions with the intention of utilizing them in social media posts and advertising imagery if the mannequin offers her permission.
In an announcement, Jörgen Andersson, the chief artistic officer at H&M, described the concept as “one thing that can improve our artistic course of and the way we work with advertising however essentially not change our human-centric method in any manner”.
The retail big has labored with profitable fashions together with Vilma Sjöberg and Mathilda Gvarliani, who mannequin for Vogue and types together with Chanel. As a part of the settlement, every mannequin would have the option guide her twin on shoots for different manufacturers – that means they may, in picture anyway, be in two locations on the similar time. Talking to The Enterprise of Style, Gvarliani described her reproduction as “like me, with out the jet-lag”. Photographs of AI and human, facet by facet, look scarily lifelike.
The information has been greeted with dismay by the broader trade, which fears this might be the beginning of a shift. It mirrors the issues of Hollywood employees who went on strike in 2023 over the usage of AI in movie and TV. This isn’t the primary time a serious trend firm has explored AI fashions – Levis and Hugo Boss have additionally experimented with the know-how.
Bectu, the union that represents the artistic industries, defined the issues. “Even when fashions are compensated for the usage of their picture, it’s arduous to see how utilizing know-how won’t have a major detriment to different trend creatives and trade employees, from make-up and hair, to rigging and lights,” mentioned the top of the union, Philippa Childs. A survey discovered that 54% of Bectu employees believed AI would have a detrimental influence on the style trade.
These advocating for fashions have additionally raised issues. Sara Ziff, the founding father of Mannequin Alliance, says: “There are plenty of open questions, and one in all them is about compensation. What does honest compensation for a digital twin appear like?” H&M has mentioned every mannequin could be paid when their twin was used, with the charge negotiated with their company.
In 2020, the mannequin and founding father of know-how schooling firm WAYE, Sinead Bovell, wrote an article in Vogue titled ‘I Am a Mannequin and I Know That Synthetic Intelligence Will Finally Take My Job’. She raises the problem of the shortage of regulation. “If a mannequin offers their consent to make use of their likeness someplace, it might improve the precise AI mannequin, the information centre that the corporate makes use of, which might speed up automation,” she says. “There’s all these nuanced ways in which fashions could get much more exploited.”
Guard rails are being constructed. The Mannequin Alliance’s Style Employees’ Act comes into legislation in June – a chunk of laws which requires consent from fashions for AI utilization, when working with companies based mostly within the state. “It couldn’t be extra well timed,” says Ziff. “With H&M’s announcement, it offers plenty of different trade gamers licence to maneuver ahead in a manner that might be very reckless and damaging.”
Along with this, the AI Act will probably be launched within the EU in 2026, requiring AI photographs to be labelled as such (H&M mentioned it might use a watermark on photographs that includes AI).
Ziff is obvious that she will not be “anti-tech” and there are massive gamers in trend who’ve embraced advances in know-how.
The previous Harpers Bazaar editor Lucy Yeomans based Drest in 2019, a recreation that permits gamers to decorate up avatars in designer manufacturers. Nonetheless, the usage of AI is proscribed. “It might be pretty if AI might create all of the appears to be like,” says Yeomans, “but when JW Anderson decides he’s going to place a belt midway down the skirt, AI says: ‘Belts don’t go midway down skirts’.”
Excessive-profile fashions comparable to Sjöberg and Gvarliani will possible be compensated properly – casting agent Chloe Rosolek estimates they’d be paid “thousands and thousands” – however AI is more likely to immediately threaten fashions who extra sometimes characteristic in e-commerce shoots that showcase merchandise on manufacturers’ web sites. “Most fashions have needed to take care of job loss already and this can be a complete different scary factor for them,” says Rosolek.
Ingo Nolden, who’s Gvarliani’s agent in Germany, agrees: “There’s the erosion of human work particularly on the entry stage,” he says. He had negotiated a deal for an AI model of a mannequin he works with in 2023, solely to again out “as a result of I felt it was giving the licence out to a 3rd social gathering I’ve no management of”.
Lalaland AI creates AI fashions, and has shoppers together with Zalando and Levis. Michael Musandu, the founder, says the know-how permits customers to see a extra numerous “casting” once they take a look at an internet site. “As an individual of color, I by no means acquired to see fashions that represented this variety or inclusion perspective,” he says.
He argues the quantity of shoots that massive manufacturers produce means it might be tough to implement this alteration utilizing actual fashions.
AI will not be all the time a software for inclusivity, after all – in 2023, Shereen Wu, a Taiwanese-American mannequin posted on social media that her picture had been modified so she appeared white.
Whereas Musandu says criticism of AI fashions is “warranted”, he downplays its influence. “Manufacturers are going to proceed to make use of actual fashions,” he says. “That is supplementing … there’s a cost-saving ingredient, you’ll be able to produce this content material at a way more reasonably priced value.”
Rosolek describes H&M’s AI shoots as “one other capitalistic method to chop individuals, to chop their prices and enhance their earnings”. Revenue could also be on the corporate’s thoughts. In monetary outcomes for the primary quarter of 2025, they missed anticipated development, with Reuters describing its begin to the 12 months as “sluggish”.
An H&M spokesperson responded to issues with the next assertion: “Whereas we perceive that it will spark opinions, discussions, and uncertainty, we’re humble in acknowledging that we don’t maintain all of the solutions at this level.
“We are going to proceed to discover with different creatives throughout the trade to see what generative AI can carry to any artistic course of, whereas guaranteeing we keep our human-centric method.”
Rosolek hopes the event “is an enormous flop” with customers. “Fashions make a picture unimaginable and I don’t assume that may be replicated via AI,” she says.
Yeomans agrees. “When you consider somebody like [photographer] Steven Meisel, he was all the time discovering that subsequent mannequin, and everybody would ask, ‘Oh my gosh, is that lovely?’ ‘Oh sure, it’s stunning’,” she says. “I’m undecided whether or not AI will be capable to look across the nook and predict what could be subsequent.”