Machines Takeover – The salient AI fashion designer is here
Fashion design is a form of art, drawing flavor, color, and composition not only from the styles it creates and the materials it uses but also from the craftsmanship and the designer’s tools.
In their artistic ways, old-generation designers still use sketches and mood boards.
But, as everything changes, grows, and evolves in fashion, maybe now faster than ever with the help of technology, designer’s tools are progressing as well.
At the same time, an emerging generation of ‘hybrid’ fashion designers is rising.
No longer working with sketches, printed pictures, and physical designs, these modern creators employ digital forms conceptualized with the help of computers, inspired by social media, and, more recently, co-created with artificial intelligence.
AI-Fashion Designer – Goodbye Sketches
A true statement of the change that’s happening is Stitch Fix. A fashion startup with a team of data scientists working with AI to predict which clothes their buyers want to wear.
“The AI identifies fashion styles that customers prefer and would like to buy but aren’t designed or available yet”, says Stitch Fix CAO Eric Colson.
Moreover, the fusion of fashion with AI changes not only the tools of fashion designers but also gives birth to new C-level positions in the fashion industry.
New jobs, such as the position of Chief Algorithm Officer or Chief AI Designer, have emerged overnight.
AI-Fashion Designer – Forecasting Market Demand
However, it is not that simple. According to Colson, Stitch Fix’s AI experts use a triad of algorithms to construct the company’s AI fashion designer.
The first algorithm identifies and then recommends bits of apparel that could be used as templates for the new garment.
The second algorithm recommends three distinct attributes shown to augment the original style.
The third algorithm factors in the so-called ‘randomness factor’, designed to make the final style more interesting and appealing to the buyers.
Combined, these three algorithms can process almost 30 trillion possible combinations of styles. However, the final selection of styles comprises only nine outlines from which humans can choose.
“Our proprietary AI can analyse, identify, and generate unique fashion designs and styles that are in high demand by the consumers of fashion and yet, are missing from the market,” said Colson.
AI-Fashion Designer – The Socio-Cultural Context
Nevertheless, while most of the bulk work is done by AI, human designers are still required to assess and improve AI’s proposals into garments people want to buy and wear.
“We are [not yet] at the stage where the AI is solely responsible for the entire process, added Daragh Sibley, Data Science Manager at Stitch Fix.
That is because, while the AI can identify and construct the perfect fashion garment from a mathematical point of view, the machine cannot still assess historical and social contexts and understand how and when such contexts make fashion creations relevant or complete disasters.
So what does the rise of AI mean for the future of fashion?
From Colson’s attempt to decipher the construct of fashion from an algorithmic point of view, the ‘infiltration’ of AI in the fashion industry is becoming increasingly harder to ignore.
We see the use of AI in the fashion industry in different shapes and forms: AI in fashion as style assistants, as is the case of ‘The Look’, an Amazon creation that deeply understands fashion styles.
AI in pattern recognition. AI in trend spotting. AI in social media ‘reading’, pointing to the inevitability of seeing, one day, independent AI fashion designers at work.
AI-Fashion Designer – Inspired By The History Of The World
A new era of previously unseen styles, colors, and patterns made with the most innovative and sustainable materials is coming.
Fashion is shifting from human designs, according to one’s unique cultural background, education, and experience, to AI fashion designs, constructed on the creations of all previous designers, biotechnology, and material understanding, and inspired by this earth’s history, art, and fashion.
