EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN FASHION DESIGN

The word 'AI' in bold black letters surrounded by a faint circular pattern of black dots and splotches on a white background.

My Year 2 final project, 'The Singularity,' explored AI's emerging use and its societal impact. Inspired by a Popular Mechanics article claiming the singularity might arrive in seven years, I reflected on our relationship with AI in creativity. With the stigma around AI-generated art, I aimed to investigate whether AI could inspire and provide abstraction/inspiration rather than simply serve as a shortcut to the end product...

My aesthetic blends late 90s to early 00s optimism, inspired by early smartphone technology, with a weathered style- addressing today's AI revolution. I seek to create a post-punk vibe that captures attention and highlights the need to stay grounded amid current physical and spiritual disconnection.

My process integrated various AI tools available online, with a primary focus on DALL-E. I merge aesthetics from punk, Y2K, and scientific imagery of the human form to craft a new yet familiar vision of the future.

A colorful collage of flowers, leaves, and a butterfly, some overexposed or corrupted.
Outline drawing of a human hand with the shape of the continent of South America inside it.

PROCESS

To design around AI, I wanted to approach it in a similar way—by taking previous ideas from various sources and constructing my own. I gathered a significant collection of discarded clothes from friends, charity shops, and a selection of militaria and deadstock materials from Ringrose Fabric, which I sorted into piles for each outfit.

The term "singularity" refers to a black hole—an infinitely dense region of space from which nothing escapes, making its contents a mystery. This concept parallels the daunting idea of AI surpassing human intelligence. Julian Roberts created a subtraction cutting technique, where two holes in fabric connect to form a tunnel, representing the negative space of the body. This method was ideal for exploring this idea- but was better practiced physically rather through 3D rendering software.

Collage of disorganized clothing and fabric objects, including folded clothes, hanging fabrics, and abstract designs, with some runway mannequins.
A wooden table with multiple sheets of mixed photos and magazine clippings arranged on it, some with text and images, along with bottles and small items.

I used an image of the spinal nervous system to inspire DALL-E, uncovering a daunting vision. I printed the results, tore them up, and collaged outfit concepts influenced by the abstract forms. I input these ideas into DALL-E, but refining them to match my vision proved challenging, leading me to conclude AI had fulfilled its usefulness in my design process.

I aimed to capture a primitive, uncanny aesthetic by selecting random symbols from AI-generated outfits and revisiting my source material. One icon stood out—a pair of figures from the Fruitger aero era, which used 3D shading to create an existential feeling.

I also incorporated a skull image, generating variations until settling on a design with a hand bursting from the dome, reminiscent of a mohawk, exploring the concept of control.

ADAPTATION

The project aimed to blur the line between the natural world and the digitally generated one. I took inspiration from Fruitger aero graphics, which juxtapose natural, soft imagery with technology and artificially rendered shapes.

Aphex Twin has one of my favourite logos, described as ‘amorphous'—meaning without form. This concept was a game changer for me when examining these half-real AI generations, as I had never asked it to imagine something that wasn't actually anything...

Using Aphex Twin's logo as a baseline, I asked the AI to render a series of amorphous shapes. I then used the edit tool to select areas I found most intriguing, generating further distorted iterations.

I also experimented with a five-sided star motif as a different starting point, leading to the creation of the strangest shapes—reminiscent of Rorschach tests—constantly sparking new discoveries whenever I shared them with friends.

An abstract, highly distorted collage of black, white, and other colored patterns, symbols, and shapes, with some recognizable elements like stars, arrows, and the letter A.
Decorative black and silver tinsel garland with stars and Christmas-themed shapes, arranged in a rectangular shape on a white background.

After selecting my favourite shapes, I sharpened them in Photoshop and collaged them with photographs of flora from the #EdenProject and butterflies from a local butterfly farm. These ethereal pieces were assigned to each outfit and inspired the dye and print colours on my #Upcycled materials.

For the outfits I created, I laser-cut the respective amorphous shapes and used them as stencils for fabric spray paint.

design

Tearing and smashing previously loved garments together—all of these pieces had meaning to me or my friends in a previous life.

I wanted to explore how one garment could be repurposed as another, so I spent time in the studio deconstructing garments and draping them on mannequins (and myself) to reinterpret their shapes.

cONFORM

In this module, we were tasked with creating a tech pack for one of our pieces—these are detailed front and back drawings along with technical specifications that you’d send to a manufacturer to ensure they produce the garment according to your vision.

This process typically doesn’t apply when upycling, as each piece is unique to the garments you choose to reinterpret.

However, to meet the brief, I created a technical drawing of the garment as fully laid out as possible and specified the dimensions of each sewing line, as well as the placement of studs and spray paint designs.

Throughout the following year at university, I discovered new ways to represent these instructional tech packs for zero waste and upcycled creations, adapting them to fit the sustainability ethos while maintaining accuracy for production.

INTEGRATE

My friend Luka Peacefield and I simultaneously found ourselves experimenting with new tools to push the boundaries of our respective mediums. We realized that a collaboration would be a powerful way to challenge ourselves creatively, and a video would best express the details of our process:

“Amapunk" is a collaborative piece bridging fashion and music to explore a new tributary of punk. Focusing on individualism and sustainability, this audio-visual work represents the inspiring concepts, processes, and outcomes of our entire creative journey.

Quinn Marshall focused on fusing garments together using Zero Waste techniques to create recycled, genderless, seasonless, and wasteless clothing influenced by a wide range of aesthetics.

Luka Peacefield built a framework using fashion vocabulary, which was augmented and applied to music. These terms informed creative decisions within his composition, creating a reciprocal cycle of inspiration. Both musician and fashiondesigner informed each other's creative flow with concepts, perspectives, and techniques.

CLICK TO WATCH THE COLLABORATIVE VIDEO

Multiple overlapping images of young people with tattoos in an outdoor, wooded setting, some wearing casual clothing and masks, others with clothing draped over their shoulders.

Now, the clothes…

TRISHIRT

A black and white image of two arrows, one pointing left and the other pointing right, with a circle in the middle.
A person with tattoos wearing a plaid skirt and boots, standing outdoors on a dirt path surrounded by greenery, with a collage-like, distorted overlay of multiple images and textures.

kiltdress

A series of abstract black and white patterns with small accents of blue and yellow.
A collage of multiple overlapping photos of young men in outdoor settings, some in casual clothing, with greenery and trees in the background, and graffiti on a wall.

wrapshirt

Line art illustration of five spherical objects aligned vertically, connected by a thin vertical line, with a textured wavy pattern.
A collage of multiple images layered together showing people, some wearing military-style clothing, and graffiti art.

WRAP SKIRT

A strip of black-and-white images of a young woman in various yoga poses, set against a white background with decorative stars and shapes.