When AI Meets High Fashion: Creativity in the Age of Algorithms

Artificial intelligence might not wear the clothes, but it’s increasingly helping design them. In design studios from Paris to Tokyo, fashion creators are embracing AI as a kind of digital muse: a collaborator that never runs out of ideas or gets tired. The result? Couture meets code in delightful ways. This article, the second of three dedicated to AI’s revolution in fashion, explores how AI is transforming creativity in fashion design, with a spotlight on well-known brands, from Lacoste’s iconic crocodile getting a high-tech twist to Pandora’s AI-crafted jewelry campaigns. We’ll see how designers are using AI to generate sketches, dream up patterns, and even reinvent vintage archives. (And yes, we’ll touch on those nifty virtual try-ons, but just for a moment.) The tone is light, sophisticated, and a tad witty, because the future of fashion should be fun.

AI: The Designer’s New Muse

Think of generative AI as the world’s most tireless design assistant. Feed it a concept, and it can spit out dozens of creative variations before you’ve had your morning espresso ristretto. Far from replacing human designers, AI is becoming a collaborator that augments human creativity. As one report put it, “imagine having a design partner that never gets tired, has access to every fashion archive ever created, and can visualize your wildest ideas in seconds.” Fashion designers are tapping into this power to:

• Overcome Creative Blocks: When inspiration runs dry, generative AI can propose a starting point or unexpected mash-up, helping designers get unstuck. Lacoste’s design team, for instance, might play with an AI model to explore new riffs on its famous crocodile logo or novel sport-meets-streetwear silhouettes when they need fresh ideas.

• Explore New Patterns and Styles: AI can swiftly visualize styles outside a designer’s usual comfort zone . A luxury house like Dior could hypothetically generate dozens of fabric prints in seconds – from baroque floral mash-ups to futuristic geometric prints – to spark the next season’s looks.

• Accelerate Prototyping: Going from concept to sketch to sample is faster with a bit of algorithmic help. AI can render high-fidelity sketches or even 3D models of garments, cutting down the time it takes to experiment with cuts and drapes.

Importantly, designers remain firmly in the driver’s seat. AI may suggest, but it’s the humans who curate and refine. As one fashion tech expert notes, the emerging approach is “collaboration, not replacement.”. The designer sets the vision, guides the AI, and infuses the all-important human touch, ensuring the final creation has that spark of soul and story that no algorithm can replicate.

Sketching and Styling With AI: Brand Adventures

Fashion brands have eagerly begun experimenting with AI in the creative process. Let’s tour a few examples, from sporty apparel to sparkling jewels:

Lacoste’s New Tricks: Lacoste, famous for its polo shirts and crocodile logo, has dipped its toe into AI-driven design in a very public way. In Asia, the brand’s team collaborated with a creative agency to produce an AI-generated ad campaign featuring celebrities in fantastical settings. The campaign placed real models against vibrant AI-generated environments – think dreamlike tennis courts floating in space or digitally crafted cityscapes with giant crocodile mascots lurking playfully in the background. “We are proud to create an AI Campaign for @lacoste APAC. Shooting with celebrities, creating AI generated environments and final touch with CGI!” the agency announced. The result was a surreal yet on-brand visual feast. For Lacoste’s designers, this kind of project shows how AI can expand creative horizons: the technology can imagine larger-than-life scenes and motifs that a human might not sketch on their own. It’s the classic crocodile, but remixed for the digital age.

Pandora’s Algorithmic Allure: Jewelry design gets an AI-assisted glow-up at Pandora. The Danish jewelry giant known for its charm bracelets enlisted generative AI to add creative flair to its marketing visuals. In a recent project, Pandora worked with AI specialists to generate elaborate backgrounds for showcasing its jewelry. The team blended 3D models of Pandora’s rings and charms with AI-created backdrops in various whimsical styles – from a papercraft fantasy for graduation gifts to a swirling ribbon-filled dreamscape for love-themed pieces. The AI conjured up these environments swiftly, responding to prompts like “confetti paper flowers in spring colors” or “romantic ribbons floating in the air,” which were then seamlessly combined with product images. The project, completed in just one month, yielded a trove of unique imagery that Pandora can use in campaigns. Executives at Pandora were delighted, early previews of the AI-crafted visuals were so striking that the company planned to roll them out in an upcoming campaign. For Pandora’s design and marketing team, AI became a kind of digital art department, dreaming up settings that accentuate the sparkle of their jewelry in novel ways. It’s creativity at scale: what might take an artist weeks to illustrate, an AI can brainstorm in hours.

In 2024, Moncler teamed up with Chinese artist and AI-whiz Lulu Li to bring digital fashion into the real world. Lulu, known for crafting full-on AI-generated collections using tools like Midjourney and Runway, had created futuristic designs that looked straight out of a sci-fi dream.

Moncler saw the potential—and went for it. They picked some of her boldest AI concepts and, with the help of their expert artisans, turned them into actual clothes: a limited-edition capsule shown at their “City of Genius” event in Shanghai. Think puffer jackets and a cream gown that looked like it came from another dimension—only it was real, and wearable.

It was the first time Lulu’s AI creations hit the runway in real life. She dreamed it, AI helped visualize it, and Moncler stitched it into existence. The result? A stunning blend of tech and tailoring that proves fashion’s future might just be part-human, part-machine.

Heritage Reimagined: It’s not just new designs that AI is cooking up; it’s also reinterpreting fashion history. Brands with rich archives, like Burberry and Norma Kamali, have found that AI gives new life to old styles. British luxury house Burberry made waves by using AI to animate a photograph from its 1980 archives for an Instagram post. In the original image, a couple posed in classic Burberry trench coats. Burberry fed this static photo to an AI and out came a dynamic, subtly animated artwork: the trench-clad figures seemed to come alive, coats flapping in an AI-crafted breeze. This digital reimagining of archival content was both a nod to the past and a wink at the future. It’s part of a wider luxury trend of using AI to “reinterpret historical content for contemporary advertising,” merging legacy and innovation to captivate modern audiences. For brands like Burberry, AI offers a chance to honor heritage while making it feel new and exciting again.

A Touch of Personalization and Try-On (The Brief Context)

AI’s influence in fashion isn’t limited to the design room – it’s also changing how we shop and experience fashion, though we’ll only skim this side of things. Beauty retailer Sephora has been a trailblazer in using AI to personalize customer experiences. Years ago, Sephora launched its Virtual Artist app, which uses augmented reality and an AI engine to let customers try on makeup virtually. Snap a selfie, and you can swipe through shades of lipstick or eyeshadow that appear realistically on your face, courtesy of clever AI that recognizes your facial features and skin tone. This tool even matches hues: upload a photo of a dress, and the AI will recommend a lipstick shade to complement it. It’s like having a personal beauty adviser 24/7. Similarly, many fashion brands now use AI to recommend clothes you might like based on your past shopping or to let you visualize outfits on a 3D avatar that resembles you. This hyper-personalization is big business (who doesn’t love recommendations eerily suited to their taste?), but it’s more about retail and convenience than creativity. We mention it to paint the full picture: from designing the dress to helping you choose the right shade of lipstick to go with it, AI is everywhere. However, the heart of our story is how AI is helping designers invent the next great fashion pieces, so let’s get back to the art of creation.

Couture and Code: A New Era of Creativity

From Lacoste’s sporty AI visuals to Moncler’s AI-born puffer couture, it’s clear that artificial intelligence is changing the creative process in fashion. Designers often say inspiration can come from anywhere, now “anywhere” includes the algorithm churning away on their laptop, offering up ideas from the ether. Brands are discovering that AI can amplify the imagination, allowing them to dream bigger and faster. It’s as if every designer suddenly got an intern who’s a savant: brilliant if a bit odd, quick with suggestions, and blissfully unconcerned with convention. The key is harnessing that raw creative energy and finessing it with human judgment and taste.

Crucially, fashion’s embrace of AI has a playful side. There’s a sense of experimentation in the air, a willingness to let technology contribute whimsical, daring ideas. Pandora can render jewelry in storybook settings without hiring a whole art department. Moncler can send a digital designer down the runway. This isn’t a dystopian takeover of art by machines; it’s a vibrant collaboration. As one industry leader put it, “the future of fashion design is not about man vs. machine, but about the powerful synergy between human creativity and artificial intelligence.”.

The conclusion on the catwalk? AI has earned its spot in the atelier, right beside the sketchpads and fabric swatches. It’s here to stay, shimmering like a sequined dress under the spotlight. As we move forward, expect runway collections to come with even more surprising twists, knowing that a clever bit of code might have whispered some of the ideas. In this brave new world of style, one thing is certain: when human designers and artificial intelligence create side by side, fashion’s future looks fantastically creative. And as the curtain closes on this show, we’re left with a memorable image: a designer and an AI, each bowing to the other, both co-creators in fashion’s next great chapter.

And that is a wrap – literally, if the AI suggests designing one. 

Sources

1. Pan, Y. (2023). AI in Fashion Design: A New Era of Creativity. TechStyle Journal, pp. 9–15 .

2. Dantatsu Creative Agency (2025). Lacoste APAC AI Campaign Announcement (Instagram post) .

3. Maison Meta (2023). Pandora Gen AI Campaign – Case Study .

4. PhotoVogue Festival Panel (2023). Generative AI Use Cases in Fashion – Vogue Transcript .

5. Kotsoni, E. (2024). Style vs. Craft: Turning AI designs into IRL clothes. Vogue Business, Oct 24, 2024 .

6. Designboom (2024). Moncler and Lulu Li transform AI explorations into a puffer capsule. Designboom, Oct 28, 2024.

7. MIT News (2025). Norma Kamali is transforming the future of fashion with AI. Apr 22, 2025 .

8. World Luxury Chamber (2025). Burberry Revitalizes Archives with AI Technology. WLCC Expert Articles, Feb 13, 2025 .

9. Retail Dive (2017). Sephora wields AI for new-wave shopping experiences. Retail Dive: Mobile Commerce Daily .

10. Swarovski Jewelry (2024). Designing Jewelry With AI. Swarovski New Collection Blog, Mar 2, 2024 .

11. Flyfish AI (2023). Revolutionizing AI in Jewelry Personalization. Flyfish Blog .

12. Pant, B. (2023). Generative AI in Fashion: Collaboration, Not Replacement. LinkedIn Articles .