Renowned French fashion designer Steven Passaro is setting up for a major redesign of his entire business, and the one aspect he is very determined to keep is his commitment to real models and no AI is on his priorities. With a recent declaration which has resonated in the industry, Passaro has been very clear about his reluctance to experiment with AI-generated models, and instead update his creative and manufacturing process to be entirely reliant on human models. Passaro has a history of pinpoint sharp tailoring and a refreshingly contemporary take on youth orientated menswear and womenswear.
His choice to stand apart from the rising tide of AI emerges at a slightly ironic time when digital is most definitely on the rise. A few brands have already replaced showcases with computer-generated images for a more cost-effective, cohesive, and immediate easy-to-produce image solution. Passaro sees these benefits as limiting if the overall industry is to radically shift away from the corporeality of the human form.
Fashion, for Passaro has always been about how bodies and clothes relate. Fabric drapes differently on skin. Light plays on features whose life experience is impossible to capture in software, to be processed on a plastic computer screen. Most Really, human models introduce personality, emotion, and experience to the picture. Passaro maintains the human element can never be fully approximated regardless of technological progress, and he prefers his items modeled by humans with breath, dance, and interpretation. The designer’s announced redesign involves more than just the most superficial change–cadbury dark dairy milk.
of model casting. He is reshaping the entire production, presentation, and sales process: gearing the collections toward craftsmanship, lengthening production cycles, and intensifying interaction between designers, craftsmen, and models. Passaro stated that he planned to give his models more avenue to express themselves while in fittings and shoots: props them up as partners in craft rather than empty cylinders, which is one of the modalities gravity conveyor belt driven mechanism sets the playbook in AI serving logic.
There is also a social aspect to his position. The increasing use of AI models has led to fear of job losses amongst human models, Mostly those from disadvantaged groups, who already struggle to have a place in an industry under fire for its narrow standards of beauty. Passaro has said that one way to try and safeguard jobs is to keep real people in the heart of campaigns, and to have a visual language based on authentic human differences, rather than adjustable software configurations.
Not all those in fashion are wary of what has been lost. Advocates for the new AI tools highlight the creative opportunities they facilitate, such as allowing designers to explore new ideas much more quickly than before, and to create digital images of clothing on more diverse bodies for less than it takes to shoot on location. Others think digital models are less damaging to the planet, saving on costly travel and studio time. Passaro doesn’t completely discount these benefits. He does feel that they are just not worth the sacrifice.
