Fusing AI with fashion design - Viktor & Rolf SS25 “Couture Prompt” collection

I recently came across the new Viktor & Rolf spring / summer collection, which is inspired by “the prompt”. Prompts are slowly becoming our day-to-day tools - finding information, solutions, creative ideas and and inspiration is becoming an everyday reality. Just like the World Wide Web was slowly taking over our households back in the 90s, AI is seeping through into our lives now. Most of my times when I interact with ChatGPT, I think of how to make the prompt better to extract as much useful information as possible. Almost as if it’s a skill I’ll be tested on!

Therefore, it was only a matter of time we saw similar bouncy-round shapes generated by Midjourney in the real world. And here we are - Viktor & Rolf’s runway show in February presented the AI-inspired clothes design. However, this leads me to thinking a bit more about the impact this innovation will take on our human jobs. I come back to my personal experiments with “the prompt” and some recent observations I had.

I’ve been trying to explore some still-life / product ideas with jewellery recently, and how generated images could be interlaced with the photography for the ideas I had. I started exploring different prompts and Photoshop editing tools to see what I can arrive at. At some point, however, I hit a wall. Now, I do think we all eventually run out of creative ideas and iterations of what we want the image to become, but inevitably I asked myself - even with the AI tool, if you don’t know what you want to create, it’s not useful to you.

And so, if you’re not an open, creative person, who not only likes to use their imagination, but allows it to see things from unusual, out-of-box perspectives, no matter what tools you have, you won’t make an impact. It’s the original thought that will really count. Maybe mixing different media, maybe even returning to some old-school techniques. I’m personally looking to transform my images into real pieces. As a photographer, I asked myself - what makes me stand out as a creator for brands to notice? It won’t do to just create beautiful, appealing images anymore. I think it’s really important to learn these tools and be as imaginative as possible with it, to understand it and use it to elevate art, not just photography.

And as much as there is still a lot to work out around AI, I think there is something to be said about this - how do YOU stand out? Maybe it’s here to emphasise our own uniqueness?

Meanwhile, here are some very interesting fashion designs to take inspiration from! https://stylecartel.com/viktor-rolf-ss25-couture-a-playful-nod-to-ai-and-couture-heritage/