There is a new model in town. She is striking, elegant … and not real.
In the printed edition in August of Vogue, an assumption advertising includes an impeccable blonde model showing a maximum striped dress and a floral combination of the brand’s summer collection.
In a small impression in a corner, the announcement reveals that it was created using AI.
Although Vogue says that the AI model was not an editorial decision, this is the first time that a person generated by AI has been in the magazine.
The announcement has encountered the controversy and raises questions about what it means for real models that have fought for greater diversity, and for consumers – especially young people – struggling with unrealistic beauty standards.
Seraphinne Vallora is the company behind the controversial announcement of Guess.
Its founders, Valentina Gonzalez and Andreea Petrescu, told the BBC that they were approached by the co-founder of Guess, Paul Marciano, on Instagram and were invited to create an AI model as part of the brand’s summer campaign.
“We have created 10 draft models for him and he selected a brunette woman and a blonde that we went forward and developed further,” said Gonzalez.
She explains that there is often a false idea that the generation of IA images is simple, saying that it is actually a complex process.
The company has five employees who create AI models, and it can take up to a month, from the creation of ideas to the finished product. The pair says they charge anywhere up to six digits for a customer like Guess.
“Discouraging”
But Felicity Hayward, a more size model that has been in industry for more than a decade, says that using AI models in fashion campaigns “feels lazy and cheap”.
“Either to guess, that’s to create a discussion subject and get free advertising, or they want to reduce costs and don’t think about implications.”
She describes Vogue’s decision to include the announcement as “very discouraging and quite frightening”, and concerns could undermine years of work towards greater diversity in industry.
The fashion world made real progress to be more inclusive in the 2010s – the decade saw Valentina Sampaio to become the first openly trans model to walk for Victoria’s Secret, Halima Aden was the first model bearing the hijab in the global countryside, and brands like Savage X Fenty presented more size models on the Runway.
But in recent years, Hayward believes, the industry has slipped backwards because “these people are no longer reserved”.
And the use of AI models is “another kick in the teeth, and which will disproportionately affect more size models,” she warns.
Gonzalez and Pellecu are categorical, they do not strengthen narrow beauty standards.
“We are not creating inaccessible looks – in fact, the model of Guess seems quite realistic,” explains Pellescu. “In the end, all advertisements are created to be perfect and generally have models, so what we do is not different.”
The pair admits that IA images on the Instagram page of their business lack diversity and promote unrealistic beauty standards. They say they tried to be more inclusive, but it is users who do not engage much with these messages.
“We have published images of women with different skin tones, but people do not answer them – we do not get any traction or likes,” Gonzalez told BBC.
“In the end, we are a business and use images on Instagram that will create a conversation and we will bring customers.”
The company has not yet experienced the creation of more size women, saying that “technology is not sufficiently advanced for this”.
A Dove advertising campaign in 2024 was designed to highlight the AI biases. In the announcement, an image generator is invited to create the most beautiful woman in the world and produces practically indistinguishable women who are young, thin and white, with blond hair and blue eyes. The images generated resemble the AI Guess model.
Hayward worries that seeing these inaccessible images could have an impact on people ‘mental health and negatively affect their body image.
The concern about unrealistic beauty standards and the detrimental effects they may have is nothing new. But unlike traditional airbrush, which has at least started with a real person, these AI models are created digitally to be perfect, free from human defects, inconsistencies or uniqueness.
While some high -level characters such as Ashley Graham, Jameela Jamil and Bella Thorne have spoken against image editing and refuse to have their photoshopped images, the use of AI is fully bypassed such conversations.
Vogue’s decision to include an announcement generated by AI made a sensation on social networks, with a user on X writing: “Wow! As if the expectations of beauty were not unrealistic enough, here is the AI to make them impossible. Even the models could not compete.”
Vanessa Longley, CEO of the charitable organization Disorder Charity Beat, told the BBC that the announcement is “disturbing”.
“If people are exposed to images of unrealistic bodies, it can affect their thoughts on their own body, and a bad body image increases the risk of developing a food disorder,” she said.
“Exceptionally problematic”
Adding to the question is the lack of transparency – it is not a legal obligation to label the content generated by AI in the United Kingdom.
While Guess labeled his announcement as generated by AI, the warning is small and subtle. Readers can forget it and, at a glance, the image appears entirely realistic.
Sinead Bovell, a former model and now technological entrepreneur, wrote an article for Vogue five years ago on the risk of replacement for AI modeling.
She tells the BBC that not labeling the content of AI is clearly “exceptionally problematic” because it could have a harmful impact on the mental health of people.
“Beauty standards are already influenced by AI. There are young girls who undergo plastic surgery to look like a face in a filter – and now we see people who are entirely artificial,” she said.
Aside from the impact that AI models could have on a consumer, especially if they are not labeled, what about the impact of this technology on those working in the fashion industry?
Sara Ziff is a former model and founder of Model Alliance, an organization that aims to advance workers’ rights in the fashion industry.
She says that the assumption of assumption of assumption is “less innovation and more despair and need to reduce costs”.
More broadly, the old model thinks that AI in the fashion industry is not intrinsically operating, but can often be done to the detriment of people who give it life because there are many more staff involved in a photo shoot than the model and the photographer.
“AI can have a positive impact on industry, but there must be significant protections for workers,” she explains.
“Supplement not replace”
Seraphinne Vallora rejects the idea that he puts people unemployed and says that his pioneer technology “is additional and is not intended to replace the models”.
“We offer companies another choice in the way they market a product,” explains Pedrescu.
The pair adds that they have created jobs with their business, and part of the process of creating AI models forces them to hire a real model and a photographer to see what the product looks like on a person in real life.
However, his website lists one of the advantages of working with them as being profitable because he “eliminates the need for costly configurations, mua artists, sites rental, stage setting, photographers, travel costs, hiring models”.
Vogue was criticized for having included the announcement in its printed edition, with a person on X saying that the fashion magazine had “lost credibility”.
Bovell says that the magazine is “considered the Supreme Court of the Fashion Industry”, therefore allowing the announcement of AI to function means that they “judge it in one way or another as acceptable”.
The BBC approached Vogue and guess to comment. Vogue said it was an announcement, not an editorial decision, but refused to respond more.
So what does the future of the modeling industry look like?
Gonzalez and Pellecu believe that when their technology improves, they will be even more requested by brands that seek to do things differently.
Bovell thinks that there will be more models generated by AI in the future, but “we do not head to a future where each model is created by AI”.
She sees positive points in the development of AI in the industry – predicting that anyone could “start to see us as fashion models” because we can create a personal Avatar to see what the clothes look like and adapt.
However, she adds that we can arrive at the stage of “the company that withdraws, and not to be interested in AI models because it is so inaccessible and we know that it is not real”.
