A contemporary bag slipped into a portrait inspired by the 16th century: at Valentino, artificial intelligence takes creative liberties with art history rather than attempting to mimic a photo shoot. For the digital project dedicated to the Valentino Garavani DeVain, Paul Octavious created animated compositions where the accessory meets the conventions of classical painting. The result aligns with Alessandro Michele’s penchant for bridging eras. This is perhaps the most interesting question AI poses to the fashion world: not whether a machine can produce a beautiful image, but recognizing who, behind it, has a story to tell.
A Signature Before Software
The DeVain project brings together nine international artists. Paul Octavious’s generative work appears there as one proposal among others, not as an isolated technological demonstration. This distinction matters. The tool is part of an artistic commission whose subject remains the bag, and whose coherence depends on the brand’s aesthetic universe. The image is not valuable merely for its unexpected nature: it extends a recognizable creative direction.
United Colors of Benetton followed a similar approach for its Fall-Winter 2025 campaign, entrusted to Rick Dick. This Italian digital artist explores the relationships between aesthetics, technology, and social issues through artificial intelligence. His proposal highlights knitwear, the brand’s historic specialty. Here again, the involvement of an artist gives meaning to the technical choice. The goal is not to produce just any spectacular vision, but to present in a new light what is already part of Benetton’s visual vocabulary.
These collaborations shift the debate. Mechanically pitting human creativity against artificial generation amounts to erasing the role of the person who conceives the image. For a brand, the challenge remains a fairly classic one: finding a perspective capable of serving its identity without merely illustrating it. Software does not solve this problem.
Luxury Faces Suspicions of Taking the Easy Way Out
The public, however, does not always make this distinction. In June, during Men’s Fashion Week in Paris, Celine used AI to announce its runway show. The LVMH-owned fashion house chose a cartoon-style image that echoed the colors of the collection designed by Michael Rider. On Instagram and TikTok, the move drew mostly negative reactions, even though some users saw it as an artistic statement.
The criticism focused less on the appropriateness of the colors or the design than on the process itself. Could a major fashion house really rely on AI? For many commentators, this choice suggested a cost-cutting measure and a creative shortcut. The teaser thus became the focus of a discussion about what the luxury industry owes its audience: a successful image, certainly, but also the assurance of craftsmanship that justifies its status.
This is a sensitive issue. Fashion sells objects while simultaneously shaping desire around them. When the creation of these images seems too easy, part of that construction becomes fragile. Yet this proves neither that the work was done quickly nor that it was inexpensive. Suspicion and the reality of production are two different things.
What the shoot’s budget doesn’t reveal
Fabio Munis, co-founder of the photography agency Touch Studio Milano, specifically challenges the notion that AI equates to low-cost production. His agency has collaborated with Chanel, McQueen, Givenchy, and Zegna, among others. He is familiar with the costs of a traditional photo shoot: photographer, set design, lighting, models, and makeup. In a fully generative project, these expenses can be eliminated. The work, however, shifts.
Artistic direction becomes crucial, he emphasizes. State-of-the-art software also comes at a high cost, while developing a project can take several days. The absence of a set does not, therefore, mean the absence of production. It simply makes less visible the processes that the public instinctively associates with image-making: a gathered team, adjusted lighting, a garment fitted to a body.
This transformation requires us to distinguish between two goals. Reducing certain material constraints is not the same as diminishing the quality of a project. It all depends on how the newly gained freedom is used. The Benetton and Valentino campaigns demonstrate the value of entrusting this freedom to artists whose contributions are acknowledged, rather than letting technology take center stage alone.
Noonoouri: A Bodiless Career
With Noonoouri, the change goes beyond the mere creation of a campaign. This avatar already had more than 215,000 followers on Instagram in 2019 and had collaborated with Versace and Dior. Her following now approaches 460,000 followers. Between these two milestones, her appearance has evolved: thanks to AI, the content featuring her has become significantly more realistic.
Noonoouri is represented by IMG Models and has a contract with Warner Music. These two affiliations give a tangible dimension to a character who has never been a real person. The modeling and music industries can therefore embrace an artificial figure without requiring it to look exactly like a human being. Her professional existence rests on her image and its ability to capture the public’s interest.
Should we interpret this as a sign that models are being replaced? That would be confusing two distinct experiences. Following the transformations of an avatar does not necessarily fulfill the same desire as looking at Vittoria Ceretti in a photograph or watching Irina Shayk walk the runway. The increasing realism of digital images brings appearances closer together; it does not make their presences interchangeable.
Photography didn’t wait for AI to transform reality
Part of the current unease stems from a misleading dichotomy: on one side, supposedly faithful photography; on the other, the artificial image. Fabio Munis points out that digital retouching had already profoundly altered the relationship between the act of taking a photograph and the resulting image. Before that, manual adjustments were made directly on the film, with much more limited possibilities, particularly when it came to lighting effects.
Digital technology has expanded the scope of post-production. Today, AI makes it possible to go so far as to create an image without an initial photograph. This is a significant leap, but it fits into a history in which the fashion image has rarely been a mere record. The difference now lies in the very origin of what we are looking at, and in the photographer’s role in its creation.
This history invites us to be wary of predictions of its demise. In *Apocalittici e integrati*, published in 1964, Umberto Eco was already examining the opposing reactions of intellectuals to mass culture. The media that have succeeded one another since then have not systematically eliminated their predecessors. For fashion, too, coexistence seems more fruitful than the scenario of a general replacement.
Another Space to Showcase Fashion
The first AI Fashion Week, held in 2023, brought together more than 300 designers. Digital designers could submit their proposals on a platform and present them to a potentially very wide audience. The initiative opened up an additional exhibition space without requiring the disappearance of traditional runways.
This is where a concrete prospect emerges: collections presented in new ways, alongside runway shows, photo campaigns, and magazine covers. One challenge remains that the tools cannot overcome. Among these hundreds of proposals, designers must still produce an image that is remembered for something other than the software that made it possible.