IS AI THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABLE FASHION

The first Job I had straight out of school was working as a patterncutter. We made patterns for many brands that showed during Tokyo Fashion Week. Beyond the trauma of overwork and the toxic work environment, the more lasting impact this job had on me was to open my eyes to how wasteful the fashion industry is. Seeing this firsthand, and being a part of it made me question everything I had learned and made me want to find different ways of working with clothes. I wanted to find less wasteful, more meaningful ways of working with clothes. This is a journey I am still on.

So what does that have to do with AI?

Much of the waste I saw was in paper patterns, wasted toiles (muslin fabric) and samples, all things that would get tossed in the trash. Already in this work space we would use CAD (Computer-Aided Design). This already would save time and resources, but still requires huge sheets of paper to be printed to make toilels, and large amounts of muslin to be cut and thrown away after use. Huge amounts of man-hours as well.

Recently and more readily available to the general public are programs like CLO3d which you can draft patterns, but also and amazingly make digital samples. These samples look really accurate to what comes out in real fabric.

These programs already have a lot of features that speed up the making process for people. Things that used to be done by hand by a patternmaker, these programs can do in seconds. This technology is only going to get better. These cycles are shorter and use less resources than the old design cycle. This is all stuff that, to me, is really exciting. I hear a lot of doom in peoples voices when we talk about AI, but in this situation it really is exciting.

I think that while the answer is obvious that an AI fashion future is already currently being created, there are some questions we should ask and consider.

What happens to these crafts people who are displaced by this new technology?

If design is made to be so easily accessible to all, how do we regulate production? If one of the benefits to technology is reducing waste, if everyone starts producing and manufacturing doesn’t that counteract the potential benefits of less waste?

Will we have a more exciting design future? As technology advances and makes commodity clothing more easily, will this allow more designers and makers to question our traditional ideals of clothing and this dialogue of people vs. technology?

What about you? What kinds of questions do you have about the future of clothing?

Thanks for taking the time to read this.