Cake Chic for Really Mag

Writing, direction, styling and layout by Stella Pallone

Photos by Enzo Viado

For Really Mag Issue 5 digital and print

The Future of AI in the Fashion Industry

On the first sunny New York City day, a brightly lit room displays futuristic fabrics on silver screens. Alien-like humans wear obscure clothing on glossy white artificial runways; A completely digital fashion event with no physical designs or designers. There is a strict juxtaposition between the perfect clear blue sky and the dystopian dresses, with not a single identifiable material or fabric.

Last month, “AI Fashion Week” (Powered by Revolve) occurred in a remote Soho warehouse covered in glass windows. The various looks were shown on dimly lit screens (due to sunlight), and attendees squinted in awe and confusion at the futuristic designs. The “designers” made the collections by inserting prompts into an AI image generator. The event was part one of a competition where the winning designer gets their entire collection produced and sold by fast-fashion distributor Revolve. As the first large-scale AI fashion event, it pulls fashion professionals into a deeper discussion on the outlook of the future of AI in the fashion industry.

Artificial Intelligence is on an incredible rise, inserting itself into all points of media, such as fashion, music, film, and literature. Though controversial, the AI industry has a projected increase of 13x over the next seven years, and over 83% of companies have already claimed that AI is a priority in their business plans. With a 136 billion dollar market value, AI isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and will only increase the productivity and efficiency of any task. (Data courtesy of Exploding Topics.)

One of the main fears of the public is that AI will take away jobs, thanks to its highly efficient and cheap labor. Specifically in the fashion industry, there are already clothing factories entirely powered by AI beginning to be implemented over the traditional manual labor sweatshops. The “DexNet 2.0” is a new robot grasping system heading for sweatshops, and it is projected that these robots will begin mass unemployment. Though sweatshops are not an ethical or healthy work environment for anyone, in Asia and Central and South America, these positions are among some of the only jobs available, barely providing families with liveable wages. Not only are the robots cheaper than paying full sweatshops of actual humans, but they also can work day and night with no breaks making clothing manufacturing faster than ever. In an already oversaturated planet crawling with discarded clothing in every ocean and landfill, the DexNet 2.0 forces the question of if this problem will only get worse as the fashion industry strives for “sustainability.” The photo below is located on the beaches of Ghana, covered in fast-fashion products.

Another aspect of AI fashion falls on the creative side of design and concept development. In an entirely new process of designing, rather than drawing and sketching out looks, designers develop “trigger words” inserted into the prompt section of the image generator. These words and phrases can be anything from “bubble” and “flowy” to actual designer names, generating similar designs based on their collections in the past. Before AI fashion week, there was a trend on Tiktok where creators would actually “breed” designer names together in the prompt section (ex: Vivienne Westwood x John Galliano.) The image produced is a cross between the two designers, perhaps a Galliano newspaper print Vivienne silhouette corset. However, AI designers are not required to list the prompts for each collection and look. This brings up the issue of Trade Dress and the intellectual property of designers and brands, which is already an issue in the fashion industry without AI involvement. With a new way of untraceable plagiarizing ideas and designs, new designers can skip concept development and pull directly from their inspirations by mixing and matching.

The future of AI and its place in the fashion industry remains undefined due to its new monthly advancements. It’s important to note that AI doesn’t only affect luxury and couture fashion but also highly accessible fast fashion, only making it even more accessible and oversaturated. In what may be a step backward for sustainability and also what can be a pivotal attributor to the job crisis, AI struggles to find a feasible place in the ever-changing fashion industry without taking creativity away from others. AI fashion shines a light on coded images and may fizzle out, similar to the NFT trend of 2022.

How Marc Jacobs Heaven Fed “Niche” to the Fashionable Masses

On a long and seemingly endless turquoise couch sits model Reign Judge, influencers Ruby Lynn and Gabriette, “nepo baby” Iris Apatow, and Sopranos and White Lotus lead Michael Imperioli. Traits these personas share only lie in the niche internet subculture created by gen-z fashion media enthusiasts. They come together and share a couch for Marc Jacobs Heaven; clad in grungy knits, baggy trousers, super-platform boots and handcuff accessories. The brand represents a resurgence of 90’s and 2000’s effortless cool, pointing to archival Marc Jacobs and Anna Sui pieces. Heaven appeals to the Tiktok generation, who have proved their willingness to spend $120-$375 per piece. In other words, a match made in heaven, literally.

Since 2020, Marc Jacobs diffusion line “Heaven” has frequent collaborators releasing monthly drops with icons of the Tiktok zeitgeist ranging from the critically acclaimed Sofia Copola film The Virgin Suicides (1999), Japanese apparel brand Stray Rats and Shakedown Street graduates Online Ceramics. The @heavn Instagram highlights campaigns starring A-list celebrities, most recently rappers Lil Uzi Vert and Ice Spice with over 366 thousand followers. In 2018, a report stated Marc Jacobs brand was losing an annual 61 million dollars, with no profitable entities. Heaven has been Marc Jacobs' salvation, pulling the brand out of financial tribulation with an estimated 67% increase in sales (Business of Fashion.)

Heaven is the brainchild of Marc Jacobs (head of his namesake brand) and fashion writer, photographer and stylist Ava Nirui (@avanope.) Heaven's initial releases of teddy-bear logo tee-shirts, chain belts and friendship necklaces came at a turning point in youth culture; the

rise of fashion TikTok. No brand has been able to capture the essence of Gen-Z quite like Heaven. It is their mission to collaborate with every piece of a new subversive culture, including celebrities Bladee and Yung Lean (both under YEAR0001), and the Japanese Fruits magazine. The pieces were picked up fast by TikTok influencers and quickly created a culture of their own, with various hauls and OOTDs dedicated solely to the brand. The first collaboration between Heaven and The Virgin Suicides featuring screen printed skirts and puffy purses gave light to entirely new niche subculture; one of film-head Sofia Coppola enthusiasts, bringing a fashionable edge to the director’s reputation.

Through their three years of operation, Heaven has done over 10 collaborations with different brands, influencers, films, and musicians. In one of their first collaborations, Heaven released a collection with the heritage shoe company Dr. Martens. The croc-embossed leather boots, Mary Janes and oxfords with signature teddy bear Heaven branding and clasps sold out instantly.The shoes also propelled the re-sell culture of Marc Jacobs Heaven, with up-charges up to $170 over MSRP on sites such as StockX and Depop.

By studying web trends and consumer behavior, creative director for Heaven Ava Nirui has established her identity in the fashion industry as gen-z’s representative, taking inspiration from streetwear brands Supreme and Palace. Supreme is also a brand known for niche collaborations, sometimes not appealing to its entire audience. For FW16, Supreme released a collaboration with Hip-hop duo Capone-n-Noreaga, introducing the idea of cultural-bandwagoning. People were seen wearing the shirts without knowing who the rappers were, upsetting the true fanbase of C-N-N. Heaven faces a similar obstacle; creating niche collaborations that little-to-none of their audience knows about or enjoys pre-collaboration. Another example of cultural bandwagoning is Heaven will create whatever collaboration that will leave their consumers feeling like they have a cool upperhand, knowing about some aspect of culture that their peers might not necessarily know of. Just like when a football team is on a winning-streak and gains fans solely for this reason. Consumers also jump onto “winning-trends' ' that project coolness and the “if you know you know” factor.

In Heaven’s latest collaboration with 90’s alternative metal band Deftones, cultural bandwagoning has never been more transparent. The pieces of the collection were mostly screen prints and Deftones logo-tees also in collaboration with Stray Rats. None of the pieces had any spunk or edge to them, opposite to 2020 heaven, which was filled with deep pleats, shirts with ties and metal hardware. Pieces from this collection were copy

and paste silhouettes, and also very similar to Supreme, with the release of the Heaven Deftones jersey, extremely similar to the Supreme Gummo jersey for SS22. With this collection consumers see a transactional shift, where pieces lose artistic value and fall into a “logo-sells''

mentality. The loss of integrity first began with their Cocteau Twins collaboration. The 90’s Scottish rock band found fame for their mesmerizing melodies and fiery album art. In a simple design, Heaven took the words “Heaven or Las Vegas” (a classic Cocteau Twins song,) and plastered it on shirts, rings and necklaces for another word-based cash grab.

There is no stop to Heaven’s financial success in the near future, with more collaborations and A-list celebrities always in line. Transitioning away from artistic fashion, Heaven will continue to use each trendy niche (person, brand, musician or film) to their profitable advantage, upsetting fans of each subculture along the way.​ Though this cause and effect seems inevitable with the brand's design and conceptual process, the memory of 2020-21 Heaven still remains for gen-z fashion connoisseurs, hoping the brand will eventually turn back to its virtuous roots.

(All photos courtesy of @heavn on Instagram and Marcjacobs.com)