To enhance the realism of the images, fabric is scanned to articulate the way it would flow and drape on a real person.
Ms Hopkinson dismissed the idea that using digital imagery was less impactful than shooting real images.
“If I was to show you two images – one that is rendered by 3D software and one that is shot by us, I doubt you’d be able to tell the difference,” she said. “There is absolutely the playfulness we want in the campaigns. But sometimes people just want pictures of a piece of clothing on a model, not necessarily a story.”
It’s a claim Kathy Ward, marketing director at Chic Model Management, rejects, saying that “authenticity is so important”.
“We believe consumers still want a real image,” she said. “This is how you build brand confidence. Seeing the way clothes actually look on models is not just important, it is necessary.”
Like many other industries, fashion is embracing AI. Wrapd, the discount sales platform founded by former Young Rich Lister Julie Stevanja and her sister, Sali Sasi, recently released an entire campaign created purely from AI. It cost just $60, compared with the $30,000 the founders spent on the first campaign they produced for Wrapd (then known as Her Black Book).
“As a start-up, we don’t have the luxury of ongoing shoot budgets,” said Ms Stevanja. Time is a factor, too.
“Creating AI campaigns was radically faster and cheaper than a real shoot,” Ms Stevanja said. “It would have taken a team months of researching, planning, casting, shooting, and retouching, not to mention the logistical wrangling. We were able to achieve shoots in locations all around the world in a single evening, something that would be physically and financially impossible in the real world.”
Ms Stevanja said she spent about 40 hours creating around 1000 separate images using AI prompts, but settled on just 30 for the final edit.
“It’s a totally different approach to a photo shoot,” she said. “You have less direct control of the outcome – for example, sometimes AI completely ignores a prompt, or does the opposite of what you ask, not to mention the absurdities you have to scrap altogether, like when the talent suddenly sprouts three legs or is sitting awkwardly on an invisible chair.”
Still, she adds, “absolutely anyone can learn the skill, because the trial and error stage is essentially free”.