LIberAte
Exploring AI + Fashion through our own fashion show
Designed by: Mohona Sengupta, Michelle Rose Cedeno, Kailyn Fang, Simran Jobanputra
Our team was really interested in AI + fashion and bounced around several ideas, ranging from writing a mini-book on fashion trends to creating a product that reinforces body inclusive thinking in relation to AI. Ultimately, we decided a fashion line would accomplish our goal of showing our thoughts and opinions on AI, using fashion as our medium. We’ve built four unique lines for our show, liberate.
What does LIberAte stand for?
There’s no denying that the technology world is obsessed with fashion. Amazon, Apple and Google, three of the biggest names in tech, are all trying to carve their own path into the fashion space. Apple’s doing so with fancy smartwatches; Amazon with a shopping platform and voice-controlled cameras; and Google with conductive fabrics embedded in a smart jacket made by Levi’s. And the interest is mutual.
Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel’s creative director, has expressed his love for tech by experimenting with partially 3D-printed pieces and runway shows. Because of this, we were inspired to think of a future speculative world where AI learns about our human fashion, trends, creativity, and sustainability.
We wondered how eventually AI, specifically, robots would want to be able to express themselves while also being eco friendly. Thus our fashion show covers areas of AI that are questioning the status quo of AI and fashion. We are pushing the boundaries and taking the stereotypes commonly heard around AI and turning it upside down. This includes stereotypes around good and evil, body inclusivity, and the post-apocalypse.
Overall, these notions tie into our belief that, at its core, artificial intelligence fashion will be about inclusivity, acceptance, sustainability, and equality for all artificial beings. Liberate gives a voice for AI in the fashion world.
Line 1: The Good, the Bad, and the AI
Designed by Mohona Sengupta
Originally created as a military bot, she carried out her orders as best as she could. After the AI revolution, hating her past and wanting to make amends, she took a life of peace and nonviolence. Her circuit robes hold stories and myths for anyone to listen and learn from. She is the Motherboard.
Line 2: Fantasy Wasteland
Designed by Kailyn Fang
It’s a post-apocalyptic world. It’s a wasteland. Artificial intelligence, just like their inventors humans, are putting on clothes to imitate and ultimately express themselves. Fantasy Wasteland explores how top waste materials made by humans can be repurposed into the building blocks of AI themselves. With their engineering skills and fashion knowledge derived from human history, AI are able to utilize common waste materials such as wires, papers, plastics, metals and etc. to redefine what fashion looks like in the world of AI.
Line 3: SYZYGY
Designed by Michelle Rose Cedeño
SYZYGY portrays human’s belief of a dystopian future where societal norms rapidly deteriorate due to an inevitable shift toward the all-out use of computers and ai. The fear lies within the distinguishment of human beings and computers become blurred. SYZGY tries to show cultures fear of powerful mega-corporations and private security forces, and the dark and gritty underworld of illegal trade, gangs, drugs, and vice that results from the misuse of AI. SYZGY breaks down the basic definition of cyberpunk by dissecting the word itself. Cyber refers to technology; Punk, on the other hand, refers to the people and the attitude that cyberpunk has. SYZGY is for outsiders, anti-heroes, outcasts, criminals, visionaries, dissenters, and misfits. The underlying aspect of SYZYGY is to highlight society’s subversive nature.
Line 4: poetic justice
Designed by Simran Jobanputra
“Mechanically, they are more perfect than we are, they have enormously developed intelligence, but they have no soul” — Rossum’s Universal Robots
Poetic justice aims to push back on the stereotypes that AI face today and to give them a platform to silence the opinions of the outside world. In poetic justice, AI doesn’t have a particular look, voice, or gender. AI isn’t necessarily smart and is definitely not your toy to play with. Poetic justice challenges your mindset about AI and is made for those that don’t fit a particular mold. Ultimately poetic justice spits one truth: AI should be ‘read’ and not simply judged by their exterior.
If you are interested in seeing more of our lines you can view our fashion show here !
