The Current State of AI in the Fashion Industry: Will Fashion Designers Lose Their Jobs in the Future?

What is the current status of AI in the fashion industry?

AI has already entered the daily operations of fashion brands. It is applied in design, supply chain management, and product displays on online stores.

Take Zara as an example: the brand has launched a virtual try-on feature[1], allowing customers to upload a photo of themselves so that AI can simulate how the clothing looks when worn on them.

LVMH has an internal AI platform called MAIA[2], which enables teams across its brands to use AI in their work to assist with ideation and content creation. LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, 77 years old, has also stated that he uses AI every week to help with product design[3].

Source: MaIA

Mango launched fully AI-generated marketing campaign images as early as 2024[4] and has applied AI across various stages of the company’s value chain.

Source: Mango

Zalando’s AI assistant is powered by Zalando’s proprietary models and OpenAI’s large language models[5]. It provides customers with personalized fashion outfit recommendations based on location, weather, and occasion.

Source: Zalando

AI represents the future of the fashion industry, including luxury fashion.

For many brands, being able to produce high-quality clothing images for customers, factories, and partners at low cost is extremely important. With Mannequ.io, simply upload a flat-lay photo of a garment and, within minutes, generate controllable multi-angle clothing photography images. You can freely choose the model, fit, styling, pose, and viewpoint. No studio, no lighting, no photographer, no stylist, no makeup artist, and no model casting required. It eliminates repetitive and tedious commercial decisions, saving time and cost, and allows fashion designers to focus on expressing clothing design and creating brand value.

What Are the Advantages of AI in the Fashion Industry?

Its greatest value lies in streamlining workflows. It can automate a large amount of administrative and repetitive work.

In fashion, considerable time is spent organizing data, revising specifications, preparing product images, and repeatedly adjusting marketing materials. These tasks must be done, yet they can easily take teams several days—especially for startup brands. AI can help handle some of these steps, giving designers more time to research styles and fabric combinations and to concentrate their energy on creation.

Will Fashion Designers Lose Their Jobs in the Future?

The way designers work will inevitably change.

If a designer’s work mainly involves repeatedly producing images and modifying styles, they are indeed more vulnerable to impact. Therefore, designers need to think about this: when these steps become faster and simpler thanks to AI, what else can they still bring to the brand?

AI can instantly give you many options, but deciding which ones are worth pursuing, how to adjust the proportions, and whether the fabric can achieve the desired effect still requires the designer’s judgment.

AI is merely a powerful assistant that helps handle complex tasks, thereby allowing designers to focus more on aesthetics and originality. In the future, polarization will emerge: one group of designers who stagnate, and another group of outstanding talents who leverage AI to produce even better work. The unique aesthetic and soul of each brand can never be fully replaced by AI. At least in the short term, it remains only a tool that amplifies and accelerates human creativity.

References

[1] YouTube. (2026, January 6). Zara changed shopping FOREVER! ZARA AI virtual fitting room app/feature! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcUzyUb9-Fo

[2] LVMH. (n.d.). MaIA. https://maia.lvmh.com/

[3] Duckett, B. (2026, June 18). LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault says he uses A.I. weekly to design products. Observer. https://observer.com/2026/06/lvmh-ceo-bernard-arnault-says-he-uses-a-i-weekly-to-design-products/

[4] Edelson, S. (2024, July 15). Mango logs strong first half, leans into artificial intelligence. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sharonedelson/2024/07/15/mango-logs-strong-first-half-leans-into-artificial-intelligence/

[5] Zalando. (2024, October 1). Zalando brings its AI-powered assistant to all markets and adds four new cities to its Trend Spotter. Zalando Corporate. https://corporate.zalando.com/en/technology/zalando-brings-its-ai-powered-assistant-all-markets-and-adds-four-new-cities-its-trend