February 12, 2025

Racing Rival Shack Heatss

Fashion Trends, Shopping More Joyfully

Watch Fashioning Fiction 2023: A.I. Expanding the Narrative of Fashion Photography | PhotoVogue Festival 2023: What Makes Us Human? Image in the Age of A.I.

Watch Fashioning Fiction 2023: A.I. Expanding the Narrative of Fashion Photography | PhotoVogue Festival 2023: What Makes Us Human? Image in the Age of A.I.

[attendees applaud loudly] [Chiara speaks faintly]

Can I sit here?

Thank you so much.

Hi, Margaret, can you hear us?

Hi. Yes, I can hear you. Hi, Margaret.

Welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

I’m really looking forward for this talk.

And I hope we’re gonna go a little bit in deep

into the world of AI applied to fashion photography,

fashion design, and also in the editorial business.

The first question that I want to ask everybody

is regards the title.

So, the title reference a very famous show

that was done at the MoMA in New York

about the narrative shift

that happened in fashion photography in the nineties.

So, I would love to know,

what do you envision in like what kind of narrative shifts

and you know, enhancement will AI bring

to the world of fashion storytelling?

Maybe Bryan, you can start

in terms like from an artist’s point of view.

And then, maybe,

Margaret, you can dwelve a little bit into a editorial one.

And Cyril of course, also, the artistic one.

Yeah, for me, I feel like

sometimes it’s very hard to communicate my ideas.

And I think sometimes what’s really easy

and digestible is returning to things that we know,

film, photography, the work of like classic photographers,

which I love as well.

But I feel like AI really makes things like fantasy

much more accessible.

Like, I said before, it’s kind of like,

you now can generate an image in like 15 seconds,

and you can show a client, This is what I want to do.

And so, if you can do that, then, there’s gonna be a shift

because now anyone can present that.

Your wildest ideas are digestible now.

So, that’s the value I think AI is bringing to fashion.

What do you think? I totally agree.

Oh, sorry I was. [chuckles]

No, no, all good.

I was just gonna say I totally agree.

And in some way, I think it distinguishes more

the different levels and types of artists.

So, for example, when you think about the evolution

of fashion as in product,

the shift from kind of craftsmanship

and couture over to ready-to-wear.

It made the handcrafted things

and things with human touch much more valuable.

So, I think the view is really from

an image creation standpoint.

AI in some way will become a mass product

and a norm of like a visual language.

And then, the human element on top of that,

whether it’s, you know, film, photography

or that final 20% of a human touch.

Or that human imperfection

will become a kind of luxury product in my view.

Yeah, I think AI is like this tool

that you can really push,

and when you are a photographer or a creative director,

you can really like open somewhere like you say,

like fantasy, and really, push all type of fashion.

It’s amazing.

Yeah, I mean, from my point of view,

I think that also the accessibility of the tool

is something that it’s really important.

We’re going more and more towards the democratization

of everything.

[device dings] Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.

Sorry, sorry.

So, the fact that this is something

that it’s incredibly accessible,

and will make some kind of artistic endeavor easily,

not easily, but achievable for everybody, you know,

in a world in which budget are shrinking,

and those kind of like crazy sets that,

you know, from the good old times

might not be possible anymore.

This will mean, I think, that it will really liberate

a certain kind of creativity instead of tilting it.

What do you think?

I 100% agree.

And with what Margaret said

about the human touch being valued more,

that’s something that I truly believe,

Because AI needs humanity.

Without it, AI is just a library of things

we’ve already done.

So, you have to feed it.

Like, AI can open up new ways of thinking about art.

Like, when I walked through the museum,

I saw things that I maybe didn’t imagine before, like truly.

And I think, you know, there’s always been that feeling

of like, everything’s been done before,

but you can’t say that.

Like, you can’t go around saying that

when there are new things in that exhibition,

you haven’t seen things like that before.

So, AI is a way to get us further in image-making

and it’s not an enemy.

It needs us way more than we need it actually,

because it’s just history.

Yeah, with AI,

you can really push your creativity to another level.

Those tools, those workflow you can create,

you can really set all,

you have this control net extension

where you can actually create your position.

You have your lighting,

you can control pretty much everything you want.

So, everything you have in your head,

you can have it like realized with AI.

It’s really amazing.

I also think that people,

we’re at such an early stage of AI visual development

that sometimes it’s hard

to imagine how infinite the possibilities are.

I think, let me try and share my screen

so you guys can see kind of the distinction.

I don’t know if you guys can see that.

[Chiara] Yes.

So, for Vogue China, obviously,

we’re like fairly aggressive with how we experiment

in the virtual and digital visual space.

Obviously, we’ve worked with Bryan

many times before as well.

But I think this page is some of the things that we’ve done

from a virtual standpoint.

And that requires, you know, someone like Bryan

to fully ideate something,

and exists within the finite mind of the artist.

Whereas, for instance, our first AI experimentation

was with our August issue this year.

And the process was totally different.

We had no idea what it was gonna look like.

And Truong, who’s our amazing cover model was kind

of doing movements in a studio basically just by imagination

with the artists that we worked with.

But the story necessarily kind of came together

perhaps not as cohesively,

but much more boundless in the way that

we approached the visuals in the end.

And it was more an open conversation

as opposed to an authoritative kind of one way statement.

And then, another artist that we’ve worked with a lot

is Heather Wang, who’s kind of a Chinese artist,

digital artist who’s worked a lot with AI.

And it still requires that human element,

you can see that we’re still live photographing models

and live photographing real fashion,

but leveraging this technology to amplify stories around it.

Congratulations, this looked really amazing.

I mean, and I think that what you showed us really,

it’s a glimpse into the future of how a magazine

will become, you know, the kind of center around many,

many activation that can be done.

And I don’t think that the print will lose the power.

It just will become another language

with many other languages

that will basically really free some kind of creativity

that it’s almost impossible.

And I think that in a way,

right now we are in this transitional period

in which we don’t have full control of the tools,

but it’s actually quite interesting.

I mean, I want to also to ask you,

how much the mistakes and the glitches of the AI you know,

are hindering creativity or they are enhancing it for you?

They’re the best part.

They’re the part that I can’t think of myself.

‘Cause, I know what’s in my brain,

I can communicate what’s in my brain.

But with AI, when it fucks up,

that’s the most interesting part, right?

It’s like, Okay, why is there like a ship

coming outta someone’s head?

Wait, maybe we should do that.

Maybe we should do that in the final picture. You know?

Yeah, you can really use like the glitches

and those AI bugs to potentially like,

be a lot more artistic.

Like, wow, like, AI did create that.

Like, it’s pretty amazing.

And in a- I think it’s also.

Sorry, there is a little delay.

I’m so sorry.

Oh, please. No, not at all.

I was only gonna say that it is such an accelerator

of productivity as well.

I think sometimes you think of AI in creative spaces

as you know, this fear or tension

of kind of the human creative output

versus a machine creative output.

But aside from what the guys have already said,

it’s also a productivity tool

that increases your productivity so that you have more space

to be able to actually imagine and be creative.

And I think, you know,

we spoke with John Galliano about this

on over China podcast recently.

And he was like, It’s never going to replace

the way that I think,

but the fact that it can react to some prompts

that have come out of my brain, it actually helps me more

effectively distill down what I don’t want.

Right? It’s like a faster process of elimination in a way.

Rather than this kind of open-ended experimentation.

Yeah, I mean, and I think that

the prompts part is also a big kind

of like self-awareness tool for artists

because you really need to hone what you want to achieve.

And in that process, it becomes maybe more clear

for yourself what you actually want in your work.

Because like, from my curatorial point of view,

to be honest, the only 90% of the interesting AI work

has always come from somebody that either

had already an artistic practice or that had a very,

like, was very proficient in visual language.

Like, you need to have a vision to produce something

that it’s really interesting and it’s not,

I 100% agree because think about what a photographer is,

we don’t even set up our own lighting.

We have assistants to do that for us.

What a photographer trains himself with is references,

what movies do we watch?

What music do we watch? What video games do we play?

Communicating with AI, if you’re able to get

something out of it that is something that you want,

it’s like communicating with like a German art director.

You literally have to explain the fuck outta yourself

for it to make sense.

So, if you can communicate with AI

you can be doing whatever you want.

Anyone can be any kind of photographer.

Some people just want to shoot against a white wall.

Hey, that’s cool.

Some people wanna do this full Tim Walker thing,

that’s cool too.

But it’s all about communication,

that’s what photography is.

Yeah, I mean, prompt engineering is very interesting.

You have like a lot of people that are actually

using AI tools to create their prompt.

So, they’re going to teach charge ChatGPT

how me Midjourney works, and give them reference,

and then, ChatGPT creates the prompt for them.

So, it starts from writing,

but you also can give visual reference, you have all those.

It’s an amazing tool.

Yeah, I mean, I think you touched something

that it’s really important the fact,

and that might be something that maybe people that

are not working in the fashion photography business

are not really aware,

but it’s always a teamwork.

Like, producing a fashion shoot,

producing a magazine is never a one man’s job.

You need to have the vision for sure.

But like it’s a crew, it’s a team job.

So, in a way AI is just,

I see it as another member of the team in a way.

[Bryan] Absolutely.

I was also wondering in, maybe, not so distant future,

where we are gonna actually have much more control.

What do you think about the ethical implication

of like for example, you know, shooting a model

that it’s been AI generated and doesn’t exist,

or a model that has been scanned,

and it’s now a AI for hire model?

And what that can mean for the whole industry

in terms of job.

We just saw what happened with the actors in the US, so.

I guess, for myself, I’ve done work with CGI models

before with scanning and everything,

and there’s still really nothing better than having the real

model there reacting to things, doing all that.

I think even if AI goes so far,

I would always want a real human model there.

I think CGI is great for a lot of different reasons.

Like, for something like if you wanna do a film

in Unreal Engine, having a CGI model is so cheap and like,

so easy to integrate in that world

’cause you don’t have to deal with like bad green screening

or anything like that.

But with photography, the joy of photography

is the interaction between photographer, team, and model.

That is why I enjoy fashion photography.

And on kind of a side note, I feel like when AI came out

there was a lot of fear amongst my friends,

kind of where they were just like,

Bryan, like you should be kind of worried about this.

And I was kind of worried about it

because my work is the easiest thing to replace with AI,

and quite frankly, the opposite has happened

where the humanity that I bring to the table,

that is what I think makes my work more powerful now.

And so, in just my opinion,

I would never want to replace the model.

Yeah, they will always have like fashion models,

and big campaign photographers

will always want to work with like the human.

But agencies, model agencies are actually looking

into potentially develop their offering as like AI version.

And they’re looking to have like their model

into a AI version.

What do you think, Margaret?

You know, I think it depends what your KPIs are, right?

So, in ecosystems where the goal is efficiency, conversion,

so, areas like E-commerce for example,

I think those kinds of talent image generators

are gonna be much more easily replaced by AI

in the way that they’re using it for customer service,

personal shopping, and things like that.

And we’re already kind of seeing that.

Whereas, I mean, at least from a Vogue perspective,

we’re obviously kind of looking at culture more broadly

through a lens of fashion.

And to my earlier point around what is mass AI

as kind of the commonly seen mass product

where it’s so easy for anybody to generate image like that.

Vogue stands kind of more in the luxury space

or more as an elevated conversation.

And what Bryan referenced as, you know, the kind of soulful,

and more honest interaction between a creator,

and the subject is always gonna be incredibly important.

And I think that the human imperfection

or the very particular artist’s point of view

on a high standard model, for instance,

is gonna be something that’s never gonna leave Vogue, right?

I also was wondering in terms of,

so, we saw this especially during the pandemics,

and now, we are seeing it more and more,

the idea of producing clothes that exist only virtually.

What do you think about that?

Like, how is that gonna impact the industry?

And just even a little bit,

why would we want to have just a virtual clothes outfit?

I guess, for me, sometimes,

I struggle with how it could be integrated in the real world

or even if that’s the goal.

‘Cause, it’s very cool to look at…

And honestly, those clothes can exist in the real world.

You know, like designers like Iris Van Herpen

they make clothes that are,

and a lot of those designers are inspired by her.

So, it’s very much possible.

I just, for me,

I don’t know how to translate

that to real world use myself, personally.

I think it looks amazing in still images,

but that’s different than seeing someone

walk down the street, in my opinion.

Yeah, so, for us, we doing the AI Fashion Week

where it’s like an open competition.

And from this, we have the winners,

we actually create the collection.

So, we go from live from AI directly

to create the collection.

So, there’s like this new process to go through

where you have to create the pattern-making,

and everything, and then, going to the full-on production.

So, yeah. Yeah, very. Amazing.

Yeah, like the opposite basical way.

Yeah. So, and these

are also available to be purchased now?

Yeah. Because the winner

of the AI Fashion Week.

Yeah. Basically, creates something

with AI, and you’re giving it like,

you’re producing it in the real world,

which is quite cool. Yeah, exactly.

So, the first season was three winners,

which we went into production with Revolve.

And it was quite a bit of process.

Most of them were not actually working

in the fashion industry.

So, and we produced the collection,

it was for sale.

We opened this fashion tech incubators

where we are trying to launch them,

and it’s like a competition really, like,

where everyone that plays with the AI tools

and Midjourney can then win potentially,

and create their collections.

Very, yeah. Yeah. Oh, sorry.

And Margaret, from an editorial point of view

in which in the end,

apart from the huge creative part, you also,

in a magazine have to cover some credits

and work with actual real clothes.

What is the extra value or the possibilities that you see

in using clothes that exist only virtually?

I guess there’s two elements, right?

Like, one angle of it is having virtual artists

or digital fashion creators.

So, actually, we launched

our Vogue China Fashion Fund this year,

and because in China we’re kind

of fourth-generation mobile video gaming territory, right?

So, there’s already a lot of virtual fashion designers

or virtual fashion adjacent artists

who only create virtual works.

And what they enjoy about it is that they’re not restricted

by real life limitations like gravity,

or you know, materials that would not be able to be used

for fashion, for instance.

I think that will open up a whole new territory

of fashion-centric creativity that isn’t limited

to tactile product.

And then, the second element of it

is more so from an access and exclusivity standpoint.

So, this idea of digital twins,

this is obviously not items that would only exist

in the digital world necessarily,

but for all of your physical products to have digital twins

more associated with blockchain.

And maybe, there are exclusive skews

that exist only in the digital world as a way for,

it’s not so much about the fashion product itself,

in my view in the future,

it’s more about what does that ownership of this

quote-unquote virtual fashion art piece provides you,

you know, what kind of exclusivity does it give you

or access does it give you as a kind of token.

A theoretical definition of NFT, I suppose.

So, I think it’ll be interesting to see where, you know,

fashion is really jumping on AI in a way

that fashion was not able to figure out NFT or blockchain.

And so, it’ll be interesting to see in the next five years

how those worlds start to collide.

Thanks. Actually, I mean, to me.

The part that is really interesting about this,

and it’s also also interesting about fashion in general,

is the identity building part.

Because I think that in a way we are all,

even if we are not really aware,

like, building up online identities,

we don’t need to go to Fortnite or to wear skin.

We’re actually doing it just by our social media presence.

And in a way, this is really expand the identity building

possibilities in boundless way.

And we see it with the video gaming.

But I’m quite sure that AI and you know,

virtual fashion will really

expand the way we present ourselves to the world.

What do you think about this?

I think that’s totally true

because like I wanna look like a video game character.

Like, when I look at character designs,

I think it’s so limitless.

And like, I wanted to be a character designer

when I was younger,

but I like couldn’t stop drawing like anime proportions.

So, like when I went to college,

and I could only draw like one woman

with like hair covering her hair, and like huge breasts.

Like, my teacher was like, You can’t do this.

But like that has always been a source of inspiration for me

because I think video game characters look amazing.

And then, there’s a lot of designers that make clothes

that are video gamey.

Like, Dionne Lee makes clothes for video game characters.

John Galliano. Like, it feeds into it so much.

Sailor Moon wore Christian Lacroix,

like that was it, you know?

So, I think it’s amazing

for people’s identity to free that up.

And also, just like someone

who doesn’t have access to product, all that stuff,

maybe they can have access to digital fashion,

and that’s cool too.

Yeah, digital fashion has like a big future.

I see a future where it’s going

to be pretty much like Ready Player One,

like, the Spielberg movie where we will have our own-

Without the dystopia, hopefully.

Hmm? Without the dystopic part,

hopefully.

[all laugh]

No, but I mean, we will have our online version

with our own online characters.

We’ll be having those like metaverse where we will

meet virtually and our representation of fashion

is really important into those worlds.

So, we will definitely look to be different

and have our own fashion virtual closet.

It’s very interesting.

We were talking about this exact topic on

our Vogue China podcast.

We were talking to an AI entrepreneur,

Olivia Gambelin, who has doppel,

and it’s kind of exactly what Bryan was talking about

with the digital twins or the virtual version of yourself,

or an AI version of yourself

that other people can interact with,

and kind of behaves on your behalf.

I think more than anything it’s just going

to make creativity and fashion,

and honestly, fashion education so much more accessible.

You know, to have all these curated identities online

that you can access at any time.

I think it’d be amazing for universities.

Obviously, there are ethical considerations,

and kind of scary considerations of, you know,

your AI version of yourself knowing so much more

because they’re interacting with more people as you.

But I think what Bryan was saying about the liberation

of the visual restrictions or the real-world restrictions

of the individual is super interesting.

And I think we have to,

it’s such a immediate reality now

that there’s no point in kind of shying away from it.

It’s better to embrace it,

and regulators obviously have to work on it

to make sure there’s ethical guidelines and frameworks.

Talking about, oh, you want to add something?

No. Oh, talking about ethics,

I also wanted to know what you think about what AI can do

in terms of sustainability.

Because there has been a lot of talk

when NFT was coming out.

And actually, that was not as sustainable

as one could thought.

But what do you think?

Like, is this kind of like a maybe a solution

to the waste in the fashion industry problem or?

I mean, for me, like with CGI and everything,

I can do what I do in New York City where I live.

I don’t need to fly out anywhere

’cause I just make it on a computer.

And I think that applies to AI as well.

I think the old method of flying everyone to like Naples

or something for like three weeks to do one editorial

just sounds crazy now, and really irresponsible.

And I think that AI can really,

yeah, it absolutely can help that

because it’s all make-belief.

Yeah, definitely.

Reducing the carbon footprint with like reducing the flying

for your whole team as you said, like,

AI will be able to create this entire editorial,

virtually, don’t need to fly out with people.

And yeah, that will help a lot.

Do you want to add? I think from

a fashion production standpoint, it’ll also help.

I mean, this is more to do with clothes,

and, you know, printing physical magazines

or printing physical product in that,

AI will just have a greater access to more data,

and be able to live provide a lot more options

and solutions for running a waste-free set

or generating a waste-free product,

or you know, sourcing materials

to be able to upcycle for certain things.

I think it’s, aside from what the guys just mentioned,

it’s also about the access to information

that would previously have been so manually onerous.

What do you think, Margaret,

is the role of a print magazine today?

Like, what is the added value?

And would you envision it as a role in the future?

I mean, I think to zoom out a little bit

from a Vogue standpoint,

Vogue is really more of a brand and platform,

and a connector, and a curator than thinking about Vogue

as restricted within the print magazine.

I think, at least, at Vogue China,

the way that we perceive print is more

as this luxury collectible,

it’s a reference point; it’s evergreen.

And so, it’s not really about the news, it’s not about,

you know, things that will be outdated in two weeks.

It’s more, you know, this beautiful as a minimum 200-page,

you know, coffee table volume that our audience hold onto,

and our community look back to as a reference always.

And then, more of the day-to-day

time-sensitive stuff is online.

But I think it’s more about looking at Vogue as this,

you know, incubator for things like this,

you know, the future of AI and virtual creation,

connecting, you know, a cultural curator,

and a cultural connector.

Enabling facilitating co-creation between creators

from different parts of the world,

from different disciplines.

And kind of looking at culture from a fashion perspective

rather than just talking about things.

So, that kind of overall ecosystem we find super effective,

and there’s always a home with the Vogue audience for print.

It’s kind of like we were saying before,

what’s mass versus what is luxury and special to people.

What do you think, Bryan?

Like, is it still important for you to?

And what do you like especially in shooting for print?

I actually don’t put any value into print

because what I actually put value in

is like posting it on Instagram.

But for me, like, I actually think print magazines

have to rise up to the challenge of proving their value.

So, something like Vogue China is incredibly valuable

because it’s pushing boundaries

and it’s showing possibilities.

What Margaret does is show possibilities.

So, I’m on Reddit all the time,

video game forums, music forums,

people are truly excited by Vogue China

because it does things that a lot of other Vogues do not.

They can’t believe that a vogue is doing stories like that.

That’s true value in this industry.

Like, the Vogue logo to me

as a fashion photographer means nothing.

It’s what is the covers?

What is the images that you’re willing to pursue?

That is the value of print to me.

So, Vogue is curation.

And it needs to curate what people are truly interested in,

and that’s why there’s, you know,

there’s some movement of like going back

to like very classical imagery, but we’ve already seen that.

Like, Irving Penn did all that stuff

and he still did it better than a lot of us now.

So, I wanna see something new.

And I think that’s the most important thing.

Vogue, if it can do something new is valuable.

Yeah, I love print, I love magazine.

I’m always being a big fan of like,

those beautiful big objects where you can see and touch,

and even smell the paper.

I think this will always stay,

there’s a lot of like new underground fashion magazine

that do amazing editorial things that you can see

in the digital world.

But the digital and Instagram

and all those social media also like very,

very important nowadays.

So, you really have to be on both level.

I mean, I think that you said, Bryan, something that

also touches another aspect of AI algorithm that,

which is like, I put volume posting on Instagram.

And I was wondering,

ooh, [chuckles] how does the,

like, the fact that we don’t have, so, we are all,

we’re still tied a lot in our mind I think,

when producing an editorial to the print format,

the idea that you have to have a sequence,

that you have to tell a story,

that the story is gonna unfold through the pages.

But the reality of it is that those images

will be seen mainly online as a single images,

scattered in a feed that is gonna be filled

with all these other stuff.

So, my question is how do you navigate this new territory,

and how do you still?

Like, how do you make your image

something that people will stop,

and want to look at in like this overwhelming stimulation?

That’s really like the key to all of it

because when I do an editorial in fashion,

I have to put out eight to 12 images,

I post three of them, Max.

If it’s a really good editorial, I’ll post three pictures.

The whole system is broken.

It’s something that exists from the old world

that we try to carry into the new one.

But why do we have to do 12 pictures?

Because of demands of advertisers, et cetera, et cetera.

It’s just frustrating because most people look at my work

and they remember one picture from every story I do.

And so, like,

I think that making something impactful

is the most valuable thing you can do.

So, when you see a picture of like Nicole Kidman

in a forest just like natural life running around,

it means nothing.

People have seen that picture 100 times.

Just ’cause it’s Nicole Kidman doesn’t mean anything.

But you put Nicole Kidman on a spaceship,

and suddenly, people go, Huh! What the fuck?

And what the fuck means a lot in fashion

because we’ve seen it all.

Everyone has access to the history of magazines.

I became a fashion photographer

by looking at thefashionspot.com.

I saw who was cool,

I liked Mario Sorrenti ’cause his lighting was cool.

I saw Nick Knight, blew my mind. Blew my mind.

We have to communicate with a wider world now.

We have to communicate with people who are into gaming.

We have to communicate with people who literally listen

to the most niche musicians on earth.

Like, something like Vogue has the power to do that.

And to really bring these people in to this orbit

that we call fashion.

‘Cause, fashion is for people that can think creatively.

I think about like people like Eugene Solomon

who is a true freak of nature.

Like, his hair is insane.

He’s a freak, you know?

And it’s like this is who we should be embracing, right?

Yeah, I agree.

I mean, it’s really hard to like you be different,

and see something new that like this visual stimulation

through Instagram, going through all this,

like there’s so many, so many.

So, you have to stand out, try to push the imaginary,

not making something that you already seen,

and always try to be like the most creative you can.

And AI can really bring you there with.

What do you think, Margaret?

How do you make your readers say what the fuck?

[all laugh]

I feel like we do that every day.

I think it’s more, well, to that specific question,

it’s like how do you make it a dialogue

and not a one-way communication, right?

I think gone are the days that anybody, not just Vogue,

but anybody can just stand on a mountain

and yell at people about what they think is the right thing.

Although, I know many people try to do that,

but I think now in this day and age,

it’s really about posing a question.

It’s like everything that you put out there,

especially online needs to be like,

Well, what do you think? Right?

For our audience.

And that’s how we approach our Vogue community, generally.

And I think to your broader question of, okay,

how do we perceive, you know, the social ecosystem?

What will be an AI ecosystem versus what’s in print?

It’s really about considering

whether you’re an artist or a curator,

or an editor, or a corporation,

it’s who are you talking to and what’s the context.

I think Bryan’s right in that,

there are some fairly outdated past frameworks

of we have to shoot the six images or the 12 images,

and then put them all online.

That doesn’t make any sense, right?

Because if you were considering any other type of output,

you would be considering the audience,

who you’re speaking to, how you want them to feel,

and the greater context that they’re observing that in.

Because someone’s gonna feel differently about a visual

output that they’re perceiving from their phone

via a social media platform as opposed to on a billboard;

as opposed to in a print format;

as opposed to in an art gallery.

It’s just a fact of like how humans perceive color

and texture, and scale, et cetera.

So, I mean, for us, with Vogue you will often find

there’s a lot of stuff that appears in print

because it makes sense for print,

but it doesn’t make sense for online.

Whereas our online approach is more kind of work-by-work

as opposed to the whole cohesive story necessarily.

So, I think context is such an important factor there.

I mean, I think that you said something

that it’s incredibly important about the context part.

Because as a visual editor,

you really like, it’s been a big challenge to think

how to translate a different content and make it make sense.

But sometime you find yourself in a way of saying,

We actually shouldn’t translate.

Like, these things works on print,

and we should do something that use the language of online

or the language of, you know, visual design

or the language of AI in like a proficient way.

So, I think that the question I wanted to ask you

is though that,

when I see online AI images,

I actually see a lot of homologation in the aesthetic.

I am very optimistic on the fact that

it’s gonna create a lot of creativity,

but to be honest, what I saw in the beginning

is a lot of reiteration of the same.

What do you think about this

and about also, the obsolescence of that aesthetic?

Because you know, every time a new version

of Midjourney comes out, the old one immediately becomes

very, very visibly old. Yeah.

Well, it’s like I said about photographers

training themselves through references.

If the best you can do on Midjourney

is to create a one-on-one replication of an image

that already appears in something like Vogue Italia,

what are you bringing to the table as a photographer?

Like, I think that’s very…

I think it just shows what you’re capable

of at the end of the day.

If you can create something new on AI,

then, I personally respect you more as a creator,

at the end of the day.

Yeah, I agree. I mean Midjourney definitely

has this like look and feel that you kind of like recognize.

So, we try to play with other tools out there

to really like being able to have a different aesthetic.

And now, we can like create imagery

that do not look like Midjourney at all,

and have like his own signature and grain.

I think it’s also not just about creating imagery that

is not what has already been done in the past,

it’s also about creating imagery or visual approaches

that we would never have imagined before.

I remember having a really interesting conversation with

Percy Lau, who’s an amazing Chinese accessories designer.

And actually, after having used Midjourney,

an early beta version of Midjourney for two hours,

she closed her brand because it forced her to reassess,

okay, what is my artistic purpose on this earth?

And if Midjourney can make better sunglasses designs

than I can in a year, in two hours, then, you know,

I need to reassess what I’m contributing here, right?

And her view is always kind of like how arrogant

are human beings to think that AI will just emulate

the human experience, which I find really interesting.

Which is true because we kind of try and squish AI

into this human framework or the human experience box,

whereas if you kind of allow it to run,

then, it can provide us with so much more

that is beyond our imagination.

I mean, I’m sure that also what you are doing

in all your different fields is something

that I feel very strongly,

which is also taking part in an educational process

because I think that visual literacy

and media literacy is something that

it’s incredibly important also in, you know,

shaping the new creatives of tomorrow.

And when I was doing some interviews

on the use of AI in fashion,

the thing that really came out all of the time is that

actually fashion brands are really interesting in that,

but they can’t find people that are proficient,

and have a knowledge of the history of fashion,

and of like how fashion works basically in a visual terms.

Because you have a lot of aesthetic

when you delve into forums and discords about like AI,

it’s usually this kind of like sci-fi futuristic aesthetic.

So, what do you think about what should be done

for educating, you know, the new creatives?

That’s a really good question.

Okay, so, I absolutely agree

there’s a lot of science fiction stuff.

It’s like it kind of is the undercurrent

to a lot of AI stuff.

I think that it’s really interesting

to actually go the other way

and try and make it more grounded

because I have actually had that issue too

where I will prompt something like,

picture of Jennifer Connelly shop by Steven Meisel.

And the person doesn’t really look like Jennifer Connelly,

and it doesn’t really look like Steven Meisel.

So, it’s such a funny thing to think about

because it’s so easy for me,

because my work is so grounded in fantasy

and science fiction to get what I want out of it.

But I think again, it’s just communication, right?

I think it’s like,

the key to any image maker is being able to communicate,

even if it’s just you doing the work

or if you’re part of a team,

you have to be able to explain yourself.

And so, AI is a test of explaining yourself.

Yeah, that’s true. I mean, we train AI.

So, we actually give external data set to create,

and give more,

and so, then, AI becomes more flexible.

And you can really push it

and become really more responsive to your prompt.

So, we can prompt very good details into the closing

and everything comes out.

And this comes from training and like,

bringing on like large data sets into what exists already.

I think it just comes down to two things.

One, what are you trying to say?

And two, how do you want people to feel?

Because I think regardless of, you know,

whether or not we’re talking about AI, right?

If we think about photographers, you know,

often, people see, as Bryan mentioned,

people referencing older photography

or if you came up as an assistant of another photographer,

you know, you’re naturally going to have studied

their way of lighting or studied their way of composing,

and you absorb a lot of that,

and you bring that into your own work.

For music for example, it’s the same thing if you’ve worked

with certain producers

or you’ve come up under somebody as a mentor,

then, you’re going to carry elements of that in your work.

And so, I think it’s more about with AI

where the possibilities are even more endless,

but also somehow more overwhelming

because there is almost too much choice in a way.

And like the guy said,

You do have to know how to interact with it.

It’s more about taking a step back and zooming out,

and assessing, okay, what is my purpose

as far as what I’m trying to communicate with my work;

and then, how do I leverage AI for that

as opposed to being led by the trending aesthetic

of the latest Midjourney update.

I mean, I completely agree.

Like, I think, that more and more,

like if you work in the creative industry,

your job will either resemble

or will add also a curatorial part for sure.

And even like if we will have this new professional figure,

I don’t know how we’ll call it,

the prompter or whatever’s gonna happen.

Maybe, you know, every industry will have some AI prompter

in their office to kind of like,

you know, navigate the AI panorama.

But like, knowing your purpose

and knowing what you want to say,

it’s like one of the most important thing

that you can do right now

in this overwhelming constant flow of image.

So, I actually wanted to ask you today, right now,

what excites you still about fashion,

and fashion photography or fashion imagery,

let’s say, let’s not say fashion photography,

but fashion imagery?

What excites me is the next generation

because they’re coming in,

I mean, I just did a talk on gaming.

Gaming will change this industry.

Gaming is worth more than fashion,

it’s just we should be embracing the idea

of them sponsoring covers instead of fashion brands

because the money that they have is limitless.

So, an example I did is I tried to do a K-pop cover,

well, I’m still trying to do it.

And we try to get a fashion brand that I love

and they just didn’t have enough money,

but the video game company came in

who did a collaboration with this K-pop group,

and they doubled the budget in one day.

So, for me, that is actually the most exciting thing

is the future of fashion.

And it’s just about who is willing to embrace this.

If you look down on video games,

and you’re kind of looking down on the next generation

who don’t view video games any differently than movies,

and music as a source of inspiration.

And quite frankly, I think, a lot of the engagement

that the fashion industry has had with gaming,

like, creating skins and things like that

has been so inefficient

because they’re not working

with real gamers to develop these things.

So, like, if Final Fantasy

comes to a stylist, and says,

Hey, design a skin for my video game. Design an outfit.

You better be as good as a character designer

because they are fucking amazing.

They take the fashion industry and like morph it.

Like, you have to challenge them and rise up to their level.

They don’t need to rise down to fashion’s level,

you rise up to theirs.

That’s what I think is exciting.

Yeah, I agree. I mean,

video gaming and where it goes, it’s pretty amazing.

Me, what’s excite me is like this new tool that you can

boost fashion creativity a lot.

And yeah, it’s.

What excites you in fashion now, Margaret?

I would echo the sentiment around

next generation thinking just because

it’s such an accelerated speed of evolution now, right?

We are not like, Oh, this decade and this decade.

It’s like this six months and this two months,

just things are changing so quickly that,

younger and younger, I wouldn’t even say generations,

it’s like quarter generations

or even tribe-based interest groups.

They have such a fresh way

of looking at different social issues, looking at visuals,

they have very different visual languages.

It’s not necessarily age delineated,

it’s approach delineated.

So, that’s really exciting, you know, for me,

to be able to, through our Vogue platform,

discover these new talents that we never would’ve been able

to discover in the past,

and leverage our platform to give them the voice

that they would never have had before.

I think what also excites me is extremes.

You know, I think sometimes different creative industries

can become super insular and super siloed,

and it’s only the people on the inside

who have the privilege of having a voice within the space.

But because it’s such a democratization of creativity,

not just via social media and not just via AI.

I think more broadly people are seeking out those voices

from the outside to bring either a credibility

or bring a fresh point of view,

or challenge their point of view

within what was previously their silo.

I think that’s going to encourage a lot more

cross-disciplinary interaction is that cross industry,

like, and not just, you know, video gaming, and fashion,

and the way that the guys were just talking about,

but also, what about, you know, science?

And what about different formats of fine art?

And what about FinTech, right?

It’ll encourage more cross-industry discourse,

which I think, is really important for innovation.

Yeah, the schools as well.

A lot of schools are like creating new course,

and try to like understand how to teach that

to their new students.

So, they all figuring out exactly what’s going on right now,

and the schools that are the starts

of like the fashion future designers.

So, it’s really interesting to see.

Yeah, I mean, I think that on a photography perspective,

to be honest, I think that schools

could really up their game

because there are not a lot of schools that are really like,

exploring like the possibilities.

One school that I’ve seen really doing this is a Cal,

for example, they have an entire program

on automated photography,

and how photography is really being changed.

The idea that we have on photography

has really been changed.

So, I mean, I think that what you’re,

and I really hope that what we are doing today also

is a little bit like adding to that discourse

to the importance of educating on the new possibilities.

But which are not of course neutral.

I mean, there are problems there.

Like, one thing that I also wanted to ask you

is how do you think that this shift towards

virtual realities will change and impact the need

that the next generation is asking for representation?

I think that’s true.

Representation might be existing in the virtual world.

I’m working on a book right now

with my friend Dylan Travels, who’s amazing hairstylist.

And the reason we connected was our love of video games

and character design.

We have asked so many supermodels,

celebrities to be a part of this book.

And we asked them to design what they wanna look like,

what kind of character.

Every single person within five minutes can think

exactly who they want to be, everyone.

And it’s such a wide range.

There’s Grimes and then there’s Eve’s tumor.

Everyone can imagine themselves as a version

that they want to be.

And sometimes it’s not physically possible

to exist like that in the real world.

So, perhaps real representation

might have to exist virtually in my opinion.

Yeah, we will all have like a digital twins,

like, all younger generation are getting into that already

with the video gaming like Roblox and all.

One thing that is still important

is to always keep this human.

We have to be careful to not being too disconnected

between the virtual and the real.

I think that this virtual world

or this kind of second life approach,

not only will it provide more access to people who might not

have been able to access creative industries before,

but I think, more specifically,

it’s more of a socioeconomic thing as well, right?

I think it’s not just about, you know,

people from different racial backgrounds,

cultural backgrounds, ages, et cetera,

that will be able to participate,

but it’s also people from different walks of life,

who maybe never thought that they could be a part

of a certain creative culture industries that,

you know, if we’re being honest,

can often be super elitist, right?

It is not super welcoming

or even kind of financially possible to be a part of.

So, I think that open network of creatives

who will be able to talk to each other on a daily basis

on a different plane is going to mean

that we get a way more, not accurate,

but more diverse reflection

of what’s happening in the world.

Yeah, a lot more diverse.

We see that with the AI fashion Week actually,

we have like people that are coming from,

their lawyers, or architects,

or totally outside of the fashion world,

and they’re playing with those tools with the Midjourney,

and create like amazing fashion collection.

So, it’s really great to see that, how they, yeah.

And I feel like…

Sometimes, I do feel like I would rather hear

what a 13-year-old teenager in China thinks

than like a 50-year-old creative director

who’s had 20 years of experience in publishing.

Because what they have is an outside perspective.

And it’s really exciting to see how they view themselves,

and how they view the fashion industry.

Because like I said,

I think the most amazing things in fashion

are the people that really think outside the box.

And fashion can be so insular where it’s like,

who is this cover for?

What is this collection for?

And I had a talk with my friends earlier about like,

you know, Milan is like this whatever square feet city,

and people spend their entire life savings to get a beg,

just to be seen around Milan, basically.

And so, like,

I just really believe that fashion is so amazing,

like truly just like one of the greatest things

because it embraces fantasy and embraces possibilities.

And so, I truly believe in the optimistic side of it.

And to push it further, we need to start embracing people

that we have not traditionally embraced, truly.

And so, I remember that I did this interview

with a digital artist that said something that was really

like eye-opening for me.

He said, My work is a kind of digital drug.

I explore identities that I couldn’t even imagine

I could have.

And in a way, I think that,

I mean I’m an old millennial now.

And I remember though that, you know,

I don’t know if you experienced internet

when it was anonymous.

Like you, we all had the, you know, alter ego.

It’s something that it’s not, maybe a Gen Zs

is used to be like themself on the internet,

but we were inventing characters.

And I mean, I had a lot of fun like,

pretending to be somebody that was not,

and I pretending to be maybe sometime a boy,

or like, I don’t know, a girl of another age.

And I think that in a way this could really open up like

an exploration of our identity

and you know, even like,

having fun with fashion again in a way.

Because from my point of view, we are moving right now,

probably for macroeconomic reason,

but we’re moving in a moment in which fashion feels

kind of like closing in a more conservative,

very safe space.

Yeah. So, why do you think

that when we are like actually,

experiences these explosion in creativity,

impossibility of creativity?

On the other end, we’re seeing this super conservative shift

from many brands, and many magazine, and many photographers.

Do you really want my honest answer?

Yeah. I mean, you know that you’re filmed.

So. [laughs] So, I will say that

the old guard came up and it’s sometimes not through merit.

There are creative directors in this industry who are known

as legends who were just a photographer’s DJ.

A lot of these men were just in London, Paris,

New York at the right time, and they can’t make PDFs.

They hire people my age to make the PDFs for them.

[Chiara laughs] So, what they want

to understand is what they already know,

and they don’t want to engage with people like me.

They have never wanted to engage

with people in my entire career.

I’ve never relied on them either.

So, the safety is coming from fear.

They don’t want to even look at these possibilities

because they don’t understand it.

They don’t want to take five minutes outta their day

to go on YouTube and look up how to Midjourney, period.

Period.

Yeah, 100% agree.

The fashion industry itself at its core is very old school

and not really like tech savvy.

So, they always takes them a step to like get there.

Something with NFT and Web3,

they’re still like trying to like figure out how they can

use it as a marketing vehicle, and all this.

And AI, now, it’s the big talk.

So, they’re wondering how they’re gonna be able to use it

and boost their creativity.

Hopefully, it’s going to bring on some exciting thing.

I think it’s common of all industries that,

or all social movements or creative movements

that young people are always on the right side of history.

And it’s fairly normal for older generations

to have an insecurity or kind of gravitate back towards

what they know and really dig in their heels.

I strongly believe that anything that’s actually innovative

is always gonna have at least 50% of people who just hate it

or don’t understand it.

And if you have something that everybody likes,

then it means that you are behind, right?

If everyone looks at something

and they’re like, That’s nice.

Then, you’re failing, basically.

You’re not moving forward, you’re stuck in the past.

And so, I think it’s really more about, you know…

I mean, China’s a great example actually

where people think of China as such

a extremely video-centric,

social commerce-centric digital ecosystem, which is true.

But because from a consumer behavior standpoint,

it’s very far ahead of a lot of other

kind of creative ecosystems in the world.

From a consumer standpoint,

it’s kind of gone so far that the pendulum has swam back

to the middle where the consumer or the audiences

are demanding in-person kind of tactile experiences,

but that doesn’t mean that they’re moving backward

to what it was before, right?

They’re moving forward in so far as they want immersion,

and being able to see, and hear,

and touch, and feel as well.

So, I think it’s really about, okay,

how can the legend,

so to speak, as Bryan phrased it,

in the industries, really look around them

and embrace the young innovators

who can, you know, they can upskill with,

but then, can also move things forward

rather than looking at the framework that they built

and being like,

Okay, well, it serves me to maintain the status quo.

Right?

I completely agree.

And I mean, I actually also noticed that during COVID,

a lot of like our experiences moved online,

and we did have now a pushback to kind of like,

in real life experience.

The thing that I don’t agree with is that

these are kind of like conflictual.

I think that they are definite,

they can compliment each other.

And in all of your work, I think you’re showing this

in a very evident and excellent way.

I would like to pass the possibility to the public

to ask questions

because I think this debate was quite interesting.

So, do you have some question would you like to ask?

Yes.

Yes. Okay, one second.

So, I was wondering because I really like it,

and I also maker,

and I can imagine that I would implement AI myself.

But in the past few years

I had the feeling that models became a bit more human.

So, all sizes, all backgrounds.

And with this,

I’m wondering what AI imagery of women will do

to our self image because the gap’s getting bigger.

I love the work

but I cannot recognize myself in it as a woman.

So, if you think that’s a problem,

I think you can all give your take on this question.

It’s actually very important.

I think that- I think the.

Sorry. Bryan, go ahead.

No, no, Margaret.

Please you go ahead No, Margaret, please go.

I was just gonna say that I think the kind of singular

aesthetic at any point in time with AI at the moment

is just because it’s at an early stage,

because the limitations around the technology,

but also because of the group of people who are using it.

Like, there’s quite a specific faction of creatives

who are, you know, having the resources, having the time,

having the point of view to be able to generate something.

And then, the more people that use it

from different parts of the world,

from different walks of life, naturally,

the more that it will kind of reflect

what the world really looks like.

So, I think it’s just a matter of time,

and it will happen way faster than it did

with real human models in the fashion industry,

which is just a constant battle, right?

I think it’s very valuable to have people like you

engaging with AI, truly.

Because that’s how we actually diversify things,

is by having the people

that have those feelings insert themselves into this.

So, fashion has been very brutal in its approach

to what we should look like.

But AI isn’t, AI is all possibilities.

It’s just if you want to engage with it or not.

I mean, I think that there are a lot of biases

in like how the algorithm are trained,

and there are a lot of people

that are actually fighting that for sure.

But in principle, I completely agree with the fact that

it’s great that we are talking about this now,

but it’s an age-old problem with fashion imagery.

Like, the fact that it brought forward unrealistic standards

and like, a very narrow representation,

I don’t think is just an AI problem.

It’s been a problem of fashion for a long time.

And I agree with you,

like, if we engage,

the more people and diverse people engage with it,

the more we will have like a range of representation

and of different kind of bodies, beauty.

I mean, I see a lot also with like digital designer

that creates avatar for free that can be purchased.

Because in the beginning,

the available bodies where very, very narrow,

very video gamey of the old time, you know,

the kind of Lara Craft old style [chuckles] female body.

What do you think, Cyril, though?

I think the bias in the AI models can be changed

with like bringing on more and more dataset, more and more.

So, now, like, we can have pretty much

any nationality, any style.

So, I think it’s getting there, yeah.

Are there any other questions?

Thank you. Thank you.

So, I have a question to Margaret Zhang.

So, as the head of Vogue China, and also a curator,

you have been help building like

a lot of emerging contemporary artists, photographers,

and models to further build their career.

And my question is, as both a photographer and AI art maker,

would you consider to feature the people who use the AI

as a materials to create artwork like,

more in a fine arts way

instead of making the AI visual deliverables,

like as a visual fragments to compose someone else ideas?

So, and.

Yeah, we already do that.

I mean, obviously,

we cover the full spectrum of culture, right?

Anything that is creative culture-focused,

ranging from music to fine art to sustainability,

to fashion, to music, it’s all relevant for Vogue.

Like, Vogue has a perspective on all of those.

And so, we’ve done a lot of features

and a lot of co-creations actually

with fine artists of any medium.

Some of them in physical installation,

some of them in traditional mediums

where they’re interpreting AI prompts,

some of them with more online virtual ecosystem stuff.

Like, we have a Meta-Ocean initiative that is in partnership

with the UN for instance, with the SDGs organization

around ocean conservation.

But it’s visual storytelling

around ocean conservation involves a virtual avatar,

and we’re working on, you know, how can we work

with different virtual artists and AI-centric artists

or people who use AI as artistic tools

to amplify that world or expand that world.

So, I think it’s more for us,

because we look at everything through a vogue lens.

There’s a certain level

of social commentary that’s required.

There’s a certain level of creative quality that’s required.

And so, that doesn’t restrict, you know,

our lens on AI as only using it

for fashion shoot production, right?

It’s definitely also looking at who are the interesting

people who are innovating in AI,

it could even be tech entrepreneurs,

or developers, for example.

So, yeah, totally.

Thank you.

I think that there was another question on the back.

Oh, and also another one.

I think, yeah.

[Attendee] Thank you for each of your perspectives.

I was curious about, as people who work

across global campaigns and local campaigns,

I just wondered what the interplay

between both of those are now.

Are you really conscious about trying to take,

you know, more local perspectives

or working with local localized artists

depending on the campaign?

Or is the nature of of AI and and generative imagery

more global,

and does that have the potential to lean more

on the erasure side or the unification side?

I mean, I don’t really book that many campaigns, so.

[Margaret chuckles]

I always go for the most universal.

I think my work is super fantasy.

And I think everyone can dive into fantasy.

Like, I don’t know what Peruvian culture is

or something like that, you know?

But I can understand things in a very fantastical lens.

So, my work has always, I believe,

been quite universal in that respect, anyways.

I don’t wanna talk to locals, I wanna talk to everyone.

Yeah, as far as localization,

we did some test with H&M Home

where they wanted to have different type of home settings,

and seeing their actual object that we train on,

and we’re able to place in like a Scandinavian style

or more like a Japanese style.

So, with AI, you can really like see those visual

and very, very fast, and cost efficient too, yeah.

I think this idea of global

and local has actually also really evolved

because, you know, if you look at immigration patterns,

you look at different diaspora,

you look at how different cultures are reinterpreted

or evolved in different parts of the world.

I mean, I speak more specifically

from a Chinese perspective, for instance.

The Chinese American experience is so vastly different

to a French Chinese experience,

an Italian Chinese experience.

And then, a Chinese experience within the mainland here,

it’s region to region so different as well, right?

So, it’s more about, you know,

how do we across communities amplify those stories

and use AI as a tool to create,

you know, different combinations,

and permutations of collaborative talent, I think.

Looking at it specifically from an editorial standpoint,

the way that I always look at it

from a Vogue China lens is like,

okay, it’s not actually interesting for me to work with

an established, you know, iconic American photographer

photographing an international supermodel,

wearing a really established European brand,

because anybody can do that.

But can I force or push this creative to shoot a new face

that we discovered out of China?

Or, you know, shift the narrative.

Like, what is the Chinese Congolese experience,

for instance?

Because, you know, one of the girls that we scouted

out of our open casting is Chinese,

but her father is Congolese

and she identifies as both cultures.

How do we amplify that narrative?

How do we get Chinese designer creations

in the hands of someone like Bryan

who is on the other side of the world,

or somebody in West Africa, for example,

who’s experimenting from a gaming standpoint?

It’s more about how do you open up the channels

of communication to have,

not just a more universal conversation,

but more unexpected conversations, right?

Because I think a lot of the discourse

to date has been east to west, right?

It’s like this hemisphere to that hemisphere,

but it’s so much more complex than just local to global

or adapting global to local now.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

I think we have time still for the last question.

[Attendee] Thanks a lot. Hi, guys.

So, actually, my question was already partly anticipated.

I wanted to talk about generations.

So, I’m totally on board with the sentiment

of being excited about the new philosophy,

about being more inclusive,

being more multidisciplinary,

and channeling all the different sources of culture,

and history, and everything in what fashion does.

The problem is that, I guess, is that still like,

90% of decision-making is held by

an entirely different generation.

And I’m not talking about age, not at all.

It’s about the mentality,

which is sometimes correlated related with age.

I guess, what I wanna ask is, very pragmatically,

I guess, all of us faced this conflict of interest.

Very pragmatically,

what is your piece of advice to mitigate it?

How do you handle it?

How do you think we can be more efficient

in helping this mentality shift?

I’m gonna go first?

Yeah, yeah, please.

What I have always found really helpful

is to be able to speak the language

of who you’re trying to influence, right?

I don’t mean like the, you know, the actual,

you know, French, English, whatever.

I mean, understanding the way

that they understand the world.

And how they qualify success, you know,

what are their motivations?

I think if you can take a moment to observe that,

it means that you’re able to translate

what you are trying to do,

and what you are trying to achieve into their language

so that you make it a success metric for them as well.

Because sometimes,

and it’s really frustrating to have to do this,

but you are not going to get anywhere

by just like smashing your head on a brick wall and saying,

You’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong.

Look at what’s happening around you.

You’re disconnected from reality.

Because then, people just get defensive.

And they kind of go back into their shell

and they dig in their heels and hold onto what they know.

Whereas if you’re able to look at, okay, what drives them,

you know, everybody has some kind of drive,

even if they’re just trying to get

to their Christmas bonus, you know?

It’s like if you’re able to understand on a personal level,

on a professional level what makes them tick,

then, you can better translate for them,

Oh, okay, this is actually gonna help you

meet your bottom line,

or this is actually gonna achieve a better result

of what you think is gonna be a good result.

I’ve always found that to be really helpful.

As somebody who is, you know, relatively young,

and often, you know, 10, 15, 20 years younger

than many of my peers, right?

I think also like, it’s just like that, really,

It’s kind of like, for me, I think,

a huge thing was community building.

It’s meeting friends who just share my viewpoints on things.

And just working together kind of tirelessly sometimes,

pushing against what people tell us is right or wrong.

And eventually, you prove yourself.

You prove that what you do has true value.

And then, we live in a capitalist society and that’s money.

And so, for me, like when I talk about gaming

as being something that we should embrace in fashion,

I mean that in a very bottom line sort of way.

It’s not just an artistic thing that I’ve embraced.

It’s something that fashion needs to embrace

to re-energize the economy of fashion.

And so, that’s what I think unfortunately, money talks.

If you can make someone care about something

from a money perspective,

you can really push yourself creatively

and you can push them creatively.

Thank you so, so much for being here.

And thank you,

Bryan, Cyril, Margaret. Yeah, thank you,

It was really, really interesting.

And thank you, everybody.

All right, thank you. [attendees applaud loudly]

Take care, everyone. See you soon.

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