Fashion’s Data Doubles: How AI is Reshaping Modeling Work
Generative AI technologies are shifting conditions of work across different creative fields. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews, this research snapshot discusses how new applications of generative AI are affecting fashion models. First, we consider how AI technologies are extending the ability of fashion brands to manipulate models’ images. Next, we discuss key interview findings on the emerging impacts of AI on fashion models, including how models’ images and measurements are increasingly treated as data to extract, non-consensual alteration of models’ images, growing economic insecurity, and propagation of harmful beauty standards—issues that are felt widely but unevenly across the industry. The brief concludes by addressing efforts to strengthen AI governance in the modeling field and beyond.
