ZARA has become the latest fast fashion retailer to use AI to help create new images of real models in different outfits, speeding up the production process as part of an industry transformation that could have a major impact on fashion photography.
Zara's AI experiment follows Swedish rival H&M, which announced earlier this year that it had created AI clones of models used in marketing.
European online fashion retailer Zalando is also using AI to create images faster.
“We use artificial intelligence only to complement our existing processes,” a spokesperson for Zara owner Inditex said in a statement.
“We work collaboratively with our valued models, mutually agreeing on all aspects and compensating them in line with industry best practices.”
Zara's move was first reported by a London business newspaper. City AMThe article cited anonymous models who said Zara asked them for approval to edit their images with AI to show different items, and they were paid the same amount as if they had traveled for another photo shoot.
H&M and Zalando, like Inditex, downplayed the risks for photographers and production teams involved in fashion shoots, saying AI complements, rather than replaces, creative teams' processes and helps make them more efficient.
Inditex Chairman Marta Ortega, daughter of founder Amancio Ortega, spoke in an interview about her passion for fashion photography.
Since 2021, her MOP (Marta Ortega Pérez) Foundation Gallery in A Coruña, the town in northern Spain where Zara was founded, has been hosting exhibitions showcasing the work of renowned photographers.
Fashion photography by Annie Leibovitz is currently on display, and previous exhibitions have spotlighted photography giants Steven Meisel and Helmut Newton, who have collaborated extensively with Zara.
Ortega sought to move Zara upmarket, reducing the number of stores and focusing on a few large flagship stores with a more spacious and sophisticated atmosphere.
Isabel Dolan, CEO of the Society of Photographers in London, said the use of AI would reduce the number of requests for photographers, models and production teams, impacting not just young fashion photographers trying to get a foothold in the industry, but the entire ecosystem of established professionals.
