Levi’s joined the league of digital fashion last week, announcing plans for AI model incorporation to come next year, threatening the fashion model job market as we know it.
The denim brand says they’ll be working with Amsterdam-based Lalaland.ai to create hyper-realistic ‘body-inclusive avatars’. While virtual models are not entirely new to the fashion world, Levi’s is the first major company to share its intentions for long-term AI-generated use. Such a business opportunity presents yet another double-edged sword to digital innovation.
Levi’s explains that their purpose for human-like supplements is to create more ‘personal’ and ‘inclusive’ looks. Using AI technology opens the door for more diverse, realistic bodies—something consumers have been demanding from the fashion world for decades. In contrast, real human models could now face real job insecurity and become yet another occupation swept away by this modern-technology takeover.
Artificial intelligence grows in its multifaceted nature every day, seemingly taking up new and old industries faster than anyone can predict. The fashion industry has sat passenger to digital implementation and advancement in fashion shows, NFT accessories, and the latest use of Metaverse collections for what feels like only a few years. In other ways, AI has received positive praise for simplifying supply chains and logistics, cutting unnecessary costs, and personalizing consumer experiences.
All of these innovations were, in theory, working with humans, not against them.
Models in the fashion industry already face extreme competition against one another when they are all showing up to castings, fittings, and photoshoots in person. Not to mention the scarce pay they make or conditions they undergo to maintain their profession. Digital models introduce a new world—literally—of impossible standards to meet.
Levi’s shared that they don’t plan to fully replace their models with AI generations, yet, they are chipping away at the already shrinking iceberg models compete in. If household brands all switch to using digital models just half the time, then half an industry of human models are going to be left jobless.
Perhaps the race for unattainable beauty is enough a reason to argue for human-model downfall, yet, bringing lab-made personalities into casual shopping just introduces a new beast. Despite disputed responses, real people will inherently feel the need to achieve impossible levels of air-brushed beauty that FaceTune and AI technology does seamlessly, should avatar models wedge further into fashion.
A happy medium likely exists somewhere, but from a fashion model standpoint, computer-made grass is not looking very green.
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