Photo Studios Are Closing as the Fashion Industry Embraces Generative AI

Fashion photo studios are closing down as brands increasingly embrace AI thanks to the big savings offered by the technology, according to a report by Reuters.

Models are also being affected by these developments, with some being replaced by AI-generated alternatives and others having their likeness replicated without compensation.

Reuters reviewed dozens of confidential photo shoot contracts from big-name brands including Calvin Klein, Diesel, and L’Oreal that effectively grant permission to use a model’s likeness over and over again for any purpose or to use just their body and swap their heads with AI editing tools.

But other companies aren’t even using humans as the source image at all, instead relying upon entirely synthetic models.

Real-World Consequences

As a result of this, many livelihoods connected to the fashion industry are being lost. Contained in the Reuters report is the alarming news that Europe’s largest online fashion retailer, Zalando, has closed both of its photo studios in Berlin, favoring AI-generated imagery instead. In total, 340 jobs were lost, although the company says some of the employees were transferred to other roles.

Another German fashion brand, About You, has launched a digital imagery studio that uses AI-generated models. It says that Scayle Studios is cutting 90% of production costs.

“We are saving so much money,” says Julian Jansen, vice president of marketing at About You. “You’ve always had this super fast world of ecommerce, and this super slow traditional world of photo shoots, it didn’t fit together in any way — and now with AI, it’s a completely different scale.”

Models’ Likeness

Models who are still being hired for photo shoots are being asked by major brands to essentially give up the rights to their own image.

Reuters says that it saw a draft contract from Calvin Klein that said the fashion house “may use reasonably unrecognizable images of Model (no identifying features such as Model’s face, scars, tattoos or otherwise) to train and fine tune AI tools for learning general model attributes.” There was no extra remuneration for this.

Meanwhile, the Diesel fashion brand used a photo shoot casting sheet where models agree to “alteration or reconstruction of facial features and body proportions,” as well as “swapping of faces among the participating models,” and “superimposition of the Participant’s face onto another person’s body.”

Diesel tells Reuters that the model release was only for a specific campaign and that it doesn’t represent a typical contract. It was a similar case with Reale Actives, which also wanted the rights to create digital clones of models. The company, whose tagline is “Reale you is perfect you,” has denied ever using AI to replicate a model.

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Image creditsHeader photo licensed via Depositphotos.