How Fashion Shows are Pushing Creative Boundaries with CGI Technology
Analyzing Balenciaga’s Spring 2022 collection and what it means for the future of fashion-tech.
Balenciaga’s Spring 2022 collection, “Balenciaga Clones”, has arrived, and it’s every bit as fashion-forward as it is tech-savvy. In fact, while designer Demna Gvasalia’s bathrobes, enormous-puffer jackets, and plastic-bag handbags acquired quite the buzz, perhaps the most boundary-pushing elements of the runway were its implementations of technology.
For example, you might have noticed that Balenciaga’s entire collection was modeled by one sole model; one face, to be exact. One of Gvasalia’s favorite models, Eliza Douglas’ face was 3D scanned, replicated, and projected onto every look that came down the runway—all forty-four of them.
So, while Balenciaga’s clothing was very much real and created, the model’s face while wearing it was not.
The Technology
The computer-generated model is not a new concept for the high-fashion industry, and has been adopted differently and creatively across designers.
For example, Mugler’s Spring 2021 collection was modeled by a CGI avatar of the infamous Bella Hadid, mainly inspired by Coronavirus travel restrictions as the model was in New York while Mugler was in Paris. Additionally, I previously wrote about the rise of completely CGI-generated fashion models, such as Lil Miquela, and how their technology is so advanced it’s become difficult to discern they’re not real people.
Despite CGI’s rise in popularity in fashion, such as virtual-Bella or replicas of Douglas’ face, is an incredibly difficult technical process to master. CGI is widely adopted for the creation of cartoons or animated films, yet becomes more challenging when attempting to make something—like a person—feel more realistic.
The Problem
In 1970, Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori coined the term “the uncanny valley”, describing “an eerie feeling” which occurs when a human character is somewhat, though not entirely, realistic. This, perhaps, is the largest obstacle when rendering computer generated people: how do you make Douglas’ CGI face realistic enough that none of the attendees will find her uncanny, or…creepy?
Mitigating “uncanniness” in computer generated imagery is no easy feat. Rather, it’s likely the reason animated films such as Warner Brothers’ “The Polar Express” and Disney’s “Mars Needs Moms” flopped in the Box office.
In fact, creating CGI humans that look and feel truly real is so technically challenging that Disney lost hundreds of millions of dollars from “Mars” and “A Christmas Carol”, and shut down the films’ animation studio entirely.
The product of realistic CGI attempts often falling into this “uncanny valley” is a refrain from attempting realistic imagery altogether. For example, Disney’s embracing specifically unrealistic, cartoon-like character designs in “Wreck it Ralph”.
The Solution
Balenciaga, however, has developed workarounds to get the not-uncanny-CGI-animation job done. For example, by projecting solely Douglas’ face onto another human’s real, moving body, Balenciaga avoided any unrealistic body movements that motion sensor technology could produce.
In Mugler’s film, avatar-Bella morphs into a flying pegasus, demonstrating how the point of the CGI was not to make her seem realistic, but rather a method for Mugler to push creativity beyond physical limitations.
Seeing high-fashion brands adopt—and thrive—at such advanced technologies highlights new opportunities for how designers can showcase their work, and make any artistic vision (virtually) come to life.
If there’s a model you like, and you want to her to wear every outfit of your runway show in real-time, now you can do that. If you want someone to turn into a winged horse while modeling your collection, now you can do that.
Ultimately, through the brand’s creative and successful leveraging of CGI, Balenciaga is signaling to the world how technology and fashion go more hand-in-hand than perhaps anticipated.
I’m a NYC-based software engineer researching the intersection between fashion and technology. My roots are in Spain and Cuba. Read more of my stuff here, or check out my pride & joy, “The Little Book of Big Fashion Data”.
