Artificial intelligence: a force to be reckoned with and a constant presence, it requires a certain amount of emotional and cerebral labor for creatives to understand how they really feel about it.
AI’s prolific presence at all levels of society means that it is fundamental for fashion students to decipher what interests those who run and command it really have in protecting creative work and authorship, while ultimately learning how to live alongside it, and use it as a tool to their advantage.
Phoebe Owston, editor of the Journal, spoke with three Polimoda students about their relationship to AI, how they’ve used it during their education, and how they feel about it as they leave the comfort of fashion school and embark on the rest of their career.
The use of AI from students across Design and Business disciplines is as varied as one would expect: Miroslava Chavez, Undergraduate in Fashion Design Management, used it to create imagery for sketches and moodboards, claiming that to visualize the laser cut leather for her project, it was easier to use AI. When making prototypes on cotton or other types of fabrics, it was more difficult to see how the laser cut effect would appear on leather material.
Martin Ellis, with his project partner Newton Arnold, from Undergraduate in Fashion Business, used AI to “cast a wide net” when researching for SO-TA, a functional and responsible technical outerwear brand. AI was useful in its deep research functions, helping with listing sources rather than having to manually find them on traditional search engines. Martin and Newton didn’t see AI as appropriate for the design of their product, as it would have required more technical skill to produce a high quality design standard than designing using traditional methods.
Sabeen Farooqi and Julia Paul, from Undergraduate in Fashion Business, used it for their proposal for a start-up that helps chemical recyclers to source feedstock waste as a raw material for creating recycled fibers. As fashion students with limited chemistry knowledge, it was essential for their deep research into different types of chemical processes, as well as to create visuals of the data, and analyze the data they were collecting.
But how does Polimoda encourage students to use AI in their work? All students agreed that AI was fairly integrated into the school’s teaching and approach; Sabeen said that two years into her course, Chat GPT was only just coming into usage, and with the help of knowledgeable teachers like Stefano Bellandi, who often focused on blockchain technology and DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organization, a type of internet-native organization that is collectively owned and managed by its members), students were encouraged to start to use these tools in a way that was congruent and appropriate for what they needed to complete their work. Martin mentioned how external industry guests were inspirational for students in teaching them that you can have a “calm approach to AI”, and “to use it for what makes sense to you”, rather than adhering to the often felt pressure to integrate it into processes because it is seen as inherently innovative.
Students and graduates are worried, and also slightly resigned, Martin says, “basically, everything I produce, someone will be able to take it and use it, and manipulate it so long as it is online”, citing social media as a contributing factor to this expectation that art and creative work is “free”. Sabeen on the other hand is equally as wary of people looking to repurpose or even steal students’ work, “we are so protective of our project and the visual identity that we decline to provide our work publicly. It’s common that this type of student work is usually taken and exploited, and then just repackaged into something else.”
Although helpful in many ways, creatives have to come to terms with AI in regards to their creativity, authorship, identity, and copyright. With countless lawsuits around the world, like the one against Meta who has allegedly accessed millions of pirated books and research papers through the database LibGen to train a generative AI system (source: The Atlantic, The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem, 20 March 2025), designers, artists, musicians, and creators are feeling threatened. Working alongside AI means learning how to manage creative work in a way that allows designers and artists to make a living, while providing a wider benefit to society and sidestepping the handing over of even more profit to tech giants.
Can AI-produced work really mimic manmade design? Miroslava disagrees, “at the end of the day, the design work lacks soul and taste. AI can do a lot of things, but it cannot give you the specific designer soul nor reproduce the DNA of a designer.” Martin has some interesting views about perfection, pleasure, and convenience, connecting AI to social media in so far as, like social media, it gives you ideal solutions: “it makes you feel like you’re having the best reaction from this tool.” He continues, “we also have to choose to endure works that we don’t necessarily love at first or that require more contemplation.” He suggests that AI is contributing to pushing us in the direction of ever more polarization between what we agree with and what is acceptable, and anything outside of that comfort is not of value. “There’s value in having a bad experience,” he continues, “AI can produce incredible design and artwork that gives us a lot of pleasure, but that’s not the only part that matters. An innate and unique human quality is the ability to contextualize, and tell a story about something.”
Despite a shared understanding of the necessity of learning to use these tools, the students are also aware of the utility and value that other sources of information can provide: all said that they regularly used Polimoda’s Library, as well as online resources such as the Textile Exchange and the MacArthur Foundation, and various other sources of academic writing. The network of professors and their subsequent contacts are also of value, “so many doors opened to us because we called everyone who could possibly help us with our project, I think that should never be underestimated,” says Martin.
These fashion students are accepting of AI’s presence in their creative lives and in the industry; with their feet on the ground, they instinctively recognize where these systems and tools fail and the human creative must step in. Of course, today’s fashion student doesn’t shy away from the creative work which requires the distinctly human traits of passion, emotion, and lots of mistakes, but there’s a palpable sense of resignation hanging over them as they look forward. They have come to terms with the idea that, once published, their work isn’t entirely theirs to keep, and that the authorship and individuality of an idea is a precarious thing that either has to be protected or willingly sacrificed in order to gain traction or visibility.
Boundaries between what AI is used for is instinctive for these students: “I want AI to do my dishes so that I can keep doing my creative work. I don’t want AI to do the creative work, so I can keep doing my dishes,” says Martin. Creatives will always create, regardless of the tools available to them, it would just be a lot easier if the dishes were done first.
