Italian fashion house Gucci has faced a wave of criticism after publishing images created using artificial intelligence to advertise an upcoming show at Milan Fashion Week. Some social media users questioned whether this approach was consistent with the brand’s claims of “creativity and Italian craftsmanship.” The BBC reported this.
The company released a series of AI-generated images, clearly labeling them as being created using the technology. However, some commentators called the materials an example of “AI slop,” a term used to describe the mass and often low-quality content created by algorithms. Users also questioned why the high-fashion brand would choose a tool associated with cost-cutting instead of collaborating with models and photographers.
“Dark days when Gucci can’t find a real human Milanese grandma to wear a 1976 outfit,” one commenter ironically noted.
The discussion unfolded over several days before the first show of new Gucci creative director Demna Gvasalia in Milan. Other brands, including H&M, have previously explained the use of artificial intelligence as a desire for creative experiments in social networks and advertising. At the same time, experts warn of possible reputational risks.
Priscilla Chan, senior lecturer at the Institute of Fashion at Manchester Metropolitan University, noted that new technologies can bring “a lot of free positive publicity”, but at the same time cause “a lot of negative publicity”. She stressed: “I think that luxury fashion brands in particular should pay attention to (whether) the latest technologies can create a positive image for their brands.”
However, some of the audience received the campaign positively, believing that the brand managed to convey the atmosphere of “Milano glam” while maintaining its own identity. Photographer Tati Brüning, known on TikTok as illumitati, noted in a BBC commentary that “there are ways to use artificial intelligence that do not disrupt the creative ecosystem.”
She stressed the difference between retouching or creating moodboards and fully generating images, and also suggested that the campaign could be an attempt to provoke a discussion about the very concept of luxury in the age of AI. “I don’t think this campaign was necessarily designed to reflect luxury, but rather to comment on what luxury actually is,” she added.
Previously, a viral deepfake of a fight between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, created using the Seedance 2.0 neural network from the Chinese company ByteDance, caused a stir in Hollywood. The Motion Picture Association of America criticized the developers for massive and unauthorized copyright infringement and called for an end to illegal content generation.
