The battle of elite algorithms: who will program the next Louis Vuitton?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has made a strong entrance into the most exclusive fashion salons. This is not science fiction: in 2024 Dior launched an advertisement created 100% by AI, without models or real settings, reducing the traditional filming process from six months to two weeks. This type of innovation highlights a deep transformation: luxury houses and major tech companies are engaged in a hectic race to master new creative tools. The question is no longer whether AI will revolutionize luxury fashion design, but who will lead that revolution – the master artisans of old or the engineers behind elite algorithms?

Technology vs. Tradition: The Struggle for Luxury Creativity

At one end of the ring are tech companies like Google, OpenAI, Adobe, and NVIDIA, developing increasingly powerful generative algorithms. On the other end are century-old fashion houses (Dior, Louis Vuitton, Gucci…) determined to preserve their creative leadership. The clash was inevitable. LVMH, the giant owner of Louis Vuitton and Dior, chose to partner with Google Cloud to enhance “AI-based” luxury experiences. This strategic partnership, announced as “an unprecedented step advance” by Toni Belloni (CEO of LVMH), aims to combine Google’s power with the vast data from LVMH’s brands and thus personalize the customer experience like never before. This is not the only example: “privacy, personalization, and luxury are synonymous,” insist those at LVMH, emphasizing that technology must adapt to the exclusive aura of their maisons.

Meanwhile, big tech companies are competing to offer the digital palette for the future star designer. Adobe has integrated generative AI into its creative suite (Firefly), allowing sketches and images to be created from simple text in seconds—something unthinkable a decade ago. OpenAI surprised the world with DALL·E, capable of creating surreal fashion visuals from written prompts, and with ChatGPT, already used for writing everything from product descriptions to brand stories. Google has been flirting with fashion for years: in 2016, it introduced Project Muze, an experiment with Zalando where a neural network was trained with the preferences of 600 fashion experts to “make creative decisions” about color, texture, and style. The goal was for the algorithm to act like a young designer in training, combining user personality inputs with aesthetic standards. Although that prototype demonstrated both the possibilities and limitations of creative AI (it certainly didn’t win an LVMH award), it set a precedent: Silicon Valley labs are now bold enough to play in the atelier.

NVIDIA, known for its graphics processing units, has also focused on fashion. Its chips train many of the current generative models, and the company has established direct collaborations in the sector. A notable case is The Fabricant, the pioneering digital fashion house, which has partnered with NVIDIA to bring AI into the design of virtual clothing in real-time. “NVIDIA… is a vital collaborator in our quest for innovation in the creative industries,” stated Marco Marchesi, CTO of The Fabricant. Thanks to this synergy, The Fabricant aims to streamline its technical pipeline and integrate AI into the creation of digital fashion, with the support of NVIDIA’s powerful infrastructure. In other words, even cutting-edge 3D designers recognize that behind their new algorithmic muses are elite codes and processors vying for the throne of creativity.

From Runway to Algorithm: Current Uses of AI in Luxury Fashion

Far from being mere theory, AI is already operating behind the scenes – and on the stage – of today’s luxury fashion. In the design process, generative models have become tireless muses. A revealing example was Collina Strada (a beloved New York brand): for its spring-summer 2024 collection, it fed an AI with all its earlier collections as a creative starting point. The machine produced a flood of design concepts, patterns, and shapes that the human team then filtered and transformed into real pieces. While that collection was well received, later when the brand used AI to generate a couple of patterns in a collaboration with Baggu, a controversy erupted over the lack of transparency and ethical and environmental issues arising from the use of AI. The lesson was clear: AI can inspire dazzling designs, but customers demand to know when a garment is born from code and not from a hand-drawn sketch. The transparent adoption of these tools will be crucial for their acceptance.

Beyond garment design, AI is the new oracle of trends. Fashion trends – once dictated by trend forecasters with notebooks at fashion shows – are now also whispered by algorithms. Forecasting agencies like Heuritech use AI to scan over three million social media images a day, detecting emerging patterns in street styles or micro-influencers. This analysis anticipates what people will want to wear months before it happens. Luxury brands like Dior or Louis Vuitton are already leveraging this predictive intelligence to guide their collections, connecting early signals with concrete design decisions. For example, Dior collaborated with Heuritech to develop a new iteration of its iconic Miss Dior bag, calibrated according to emerging tastes on the internet. Similarly, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Rabanne get valuable insights from these AIs that help decide today the colors, silhouettes, and themes that will succeed next season. It’s big data serving big luxury. As an analyst summarizes: this approach allows brands to “go beyond restrictive data like past sales or the designer’s intuition; it promotes informed decision-making.” The luxury crystal ball now has chips and algorithms, and it is surprisingly precise more often than not.

The customer experience, another sacred pillar of luxury, is also being reinvented by AI. In exclusive boutiques, chatbots and virtual assistants have been responding to basic inquiries for years, but today they go much further. Dior launched its Astra platform in 2024, an AI that analyzes consumer preferences across multiple channels (from online reviews to live interactions) to create a unified profile for each client. This digital super concierge does not directly attend to the public, but rather empowers sales advisors with valuable information, helping them personalize the service like a genuine personal shopper made of flesh and bone. The idea is to translate cold statistics into human warmth: big data with great service style. In China, where digital innovation is rapidly advancing, AI assistants have already been seen presenting live launches: the JD.com platform deployed a robotic avatar as a livestream shopping host, and Coach used it for a broadcast during the Lunar New Year. The result was astonishing: sales conversions multiplied tenfold during that streaming compared to a traditional one. Apparently, an unwavering (and perfectly styled) virtual presenter can keep the audience engaged very effectively, although some find its disturbing synthetic realism unsettling.

Customization, a hallmark of luxury, reaches new heights with AI. Gucci, for instance, implemented personalization algorithms in its mobile app to recommend products based on the customer’s history and preferences. These intelligent recommendations had a tangible effect: conversion rates increased by 25%, and returns decreased thanks to better alignment with customer tastes. Gucci is also experimenting with augmented reality: in 2023, it launched an immersive experience using the Apple Vision Pro headset, allowing users to interact with products in 3D, bringing its digital historical archive closer to the modern audience. Other brands are leveraging AI for unprecedented services: the Italian Brunello Cucinelli launched a website featuring an assistant called “Solomei AI,” akin to ChatGPT but filled with the house’s knowledge (from its artisanal heritage to its philosophy and values). Any curious customer can ask it anything and get detailed responses about raw materials, the brand’s history, or how to combine a garment, offering unprecedented transparency and closeness. Surprisingly, a classic name like Cucinelli achieved over 10,000 daily visitors in the first week of its AI-powered website, signaling that even in the most traditional luxury, there is hunger for these futuristic interactions.

In the ateliers, AI even optimizes production: some jewelry brands like Cartier use algorithms to analyze the quality of gemstones and improve designs, reducing material waste and improving the precision of settings. And for the public-facing aspect, augmented reality merged with AI allows for virtual trials of beauty products or accessories: Dior, for example, experimented with AR fitting rooms to let clients see how a bag or sunglasses look on them without trying them on physically, blurring the line between the store and the Instagram filter. In summary, from sketch to storefront, AI is being woven into the operational DNA of luxury. Each successful innovation reinforces the idea that these tools not only bring efficiency but also new forms of creativity and service that align with the promise of exclusivity. Of course, the human factor remains the finishing touch – the vision of the creative director, the savoir-faire of the craftsman, the smile of the sales associate in the store – but now all of them can rely on an invisible and powerful assistant: an algorithm trained to predict desires and multiply inspiration.

Pioneers and Experiments: Dior, Gucci, Balenciaga, The Fabricant, and More

Various luxury brands are already functioning as living laboratories where AI and fashion converge. Dior, a house historically linked to classic elegance, has demonstrated a remarkable technological openness. Its mentioned project Astra – officially presented at the VivaTech 2024 festival – shows how Dior employs AI to make data-driven decisions and refine its customer experience. But its boldest experiment was in marketing: “The Ascendance”, the Dior Prestige spot created entirely by AI, without a single actress or real set. This campaign caused a stir not only for its dreamlike aesthetics but also for what it symbolizes: if Dior, synonymous with timeless luxury, bets on synthetic images to tell its story, it signals a changing of the guard in high-level advertising. The production cost a fraction of the usual amount and was completed in weeks, demonstrating that AI can meet the visual demands of a maison with an efficiency once thought impossible. It is a case where technical innovation did not dilute the brand’s DNA, but projected it in a new way; the public still sees the Dior universe – sophisticated, dreamlike, exquisite – only now with creatures and environments generated by neural networks instead of film sets.

Gucci, always at the forefront, is also exploring AI from multiple angles. In the creative-artistic realm, the Florentine brand has partnered with the auction house Christie’s to curate exhibitions of generative art. In 2023, they presented “Future Frequencies” and in 2024, they repeated collaboration with the exhibition “Parallel Universes: From Future Frequencies to Gucci Cosmos”, where nine artists created works using generative AI inspired by Gucci’s historical archives. These pieces – auctioned as NFTs – integrate the house’s codes (motifs, Ancora colors, iconic patterns) reinterpreted through creative algorithms. The project reflects Gucci’s commitment to art as a technological testing ground: they are testing how far AI can reimagine Gucci’s aesthetics without losing its essence. In parallel, at a commercial level, Gucci has used AI to innovate the way customers interact with their heritage. Their mobile application offers an immersive digital archive and virtual fitting rooms, and thanks to AI, it incorporates personalized recommendations that – as noted – have significantly improved sales conversion. Gucci even experimented with digital models and AI-generated campaigns: hyper-realistic fake campaigns of Gucci created with Midjourney circulated on social media, confusing even the brand’s fans due to their realism, which has led the brand to become interested in how to harness (and control) this type of generative content. When a brand founded in 1921 remains at the cutting edge of technology, it is clear that it views AI not as a threat, but as a new creative palette.

Another brand that has always played with the limits is Balenciaga. Famous in recent years for its futuristic and disruptive aesthetic, Balenciaga does not lag behind in the integration of AI. At Paris Fashion Week, it projected AI-generated images on giant LED screens as part of the set design, creating a hybrid atmosphere between physical runway and digital world. This initiative attracted enormous online attention and reinforced its reputation as a technological innovator. The brand also surprised by launching in 2024 a virtual show optimized for the Apple Vision Pro headset (Apple’s mixed reality device), allowing users to experience a Balenciaga show in total immersion, from anywhere in the world. These maneuvers confirm that Balenciaga conceives technology as part of its subversive DNA: just as Cristóbal Balenciaga revolutionized the female silhouette in the ’50s, his 21st-century successors are playing with revolutionizing the very way we experience a fashion show – whether through an avatar or high-tech glasses.

The revolution is not just the domain of historical houses; native digital actors have also emerged to take the lead. The Fabricant, founded in 2018, is considered the first 100% digital fashion house. Its “workshops” are virtual environments, and its garments are haute couture pieces that dress avatars or NFT collectors in the metaverse. Since its beginning, The Fabricant has utilized cutting-edge 3D software, but recently has integrated AI to accelerate and enhance its creative process. Its partnership with NVIDIA provides access to the latest advancements in real-time rendering and artificial intelligence, which aims to make its digital designs more efficient and spectacular. The CTO of The Fabricant makes it clear: collaborating with AI leaders like NVIDIA is key to the mission of “pushing digital fashion to new horizons”. In practice, this translates into tools where a virtual designer describes a garment or an experience, and AI instantly generates ultra-realistic prototypes ready to be deployed across various virtual platforms. The next-generation digital luxury is being forged with human creative spark and the tireless engine of artificial intelligence. And although these creations can’t be touched, they replicate the exclusivity model of traditional luxury: The Fabricant sold a digital dress for $9,500 in 2019, demonstrating that people are willing to pay for fashion pieces that exist only in pixels – because behind them lies an artistic vision, now enhanced by AI, that imparts cultural value.

Additionally to these names, the list of brands incorporating AI grows every day. Lanvin, the French house founded in 1889, surprised by using generative AI to animate sports sketches from its historical archives in a recent campaign, blending its Art Deco heritage with algorithmic creativity to re-enter the current luxury conversation. Cult Gaia, a California-based brand known for its sculptural handbags, adorned the runway during Fashion Week with AI-generated visuals on screens, achieving extensive media coverage and proclaiming the role of AI in the digital narrative of fashion. And outside of clothing, eyewear brands like Ray-Ban have partnered with Meta to launch smart glasses with an integrated AI assistant that advises on styling in real-time. Even elite sporting events have served as showcases: during the 2024 US Open, Tiffany & Co. installed an AI-powered AR mirror where attendees interact with virtual versions, embedded with diamonds, of trophies and tennis rackets, merging luxury, sport, and technological fantasy. These are very diverse cases, but they share a common thread: AI is intertwining with the creativity and marketing of luxury brands to offer unprecedented experiences, whether it’s a show happening in cyberspace, a bag conceived by an algorithm, or a virtual jewel dazzling at a sporting event.

Digital Designer in Charge? The Future of Luxury in the AI Era

With these precedents, one can imagine a scenario that not long ago would have sounded absurd: Artificial intelligence can take on the creative direction of a luxury brand? The idea is already circulating quietly in the industry. It’s being said that some brands are exploring the role of “AI creative director,” a position aimed at orchestrating the generation of visuals and concepts using tools like Midjourney or Runway, through carefully crafted prompts. In other words, instead of a designer drawing sketches, there would be a prompt engineer describing the vision in detail so that the AI produces hundreds of options for clothing, logos, campaigns, etc., from which the ones most aligned with the brand are then selected. The image almost evokes Cinderella with her mice and bird helpers – only here, it would be servers and algorithms working under creative direction.

Now, can an algorithm encapsulate and evolve the cultural DNA of a historic maison? The DNA of brands like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, or Dior is not only found in patterns or logos but in a mystique built over decades, even centuries. It is a savoir-faire passed down from masters to apprentices, a sensitivity to the spirit of the times (zeitgeist), and an emotional connection with the audience. Some optimists point out that an AI trained on the entire archives of the house (all past designs, notes from its creators, period references) and crossed with massive data on global trends, in theory, propose creations faithful to the brand’s style while also being innovative. Indeed, we have already seen a glimpse of this when Dior “fed” its heritage to AI to reinterpret a classic bag, or when Gucci invited AI to play with its aesthetic codes in art exhibitions. It is tempting to imagine a “Karl Lagerfeld 2.0,” an artificial intelligence that has absorbed all of Chanel from 1910 to the current and can generate virtual tweed outfits each season that blend modernity with homage to Coco.

Yet, high-level creativity has an elusive quality: the ability to break molds. A human designer can, almost viscerally, feel when it is time to betray the house’s codes to launch it into a new era (let’s think of Hedi Slimane bringing rock to Saint Laurent, or Virgil Abloh reinventing Louis Vuitton with streetwear). An AI can make such a decision, going against the dominant trend and historical data? AI tends to average results based on existing patterns, rather than leap into the unknown. An algorithm trained on what was, no matter how sophisticated, will lack that spark of genius or rebelliousness necessary to start something truly new. As an expert questioned, “How original can those designs be when AI draws inspiration from everything it has seen before?” The risk is an elegant homogenization: many beautiful variations but devoid of soul, lacking that human element that evokes emotion or tells a personal story.

There is also the issue of acceptance. Luxury is built around narratives and almost mythical figures – enfant terribles creatives, visionary directors, ateliers with centuries-old seamstresses – that offer an aura of living art. If tomorrow a brand announced that its creative director is an algorithm, how would its loyal customers react? Tech-savvy millennials or Gen Z would applaud it as the latest futuristic extravagance, but it is that many luxury enthusiasts would see it as heresy, a loss of authenticity. In fact, we already saw a preview: when the streetwear brand Levi’s announced plans to use AI-generated models for its catalogs (instead of hiring more diverse human models), the public response was mostly negative, perceiving it as a cold solution to a warm problem (representation) – a sign that in fashion, authenticity and the human factor matter. In luxury, where the price includes the intangible of art and tradition, that factor can be even more critical.

It is possible that the new digital luxury will find a hybrid balance. More than a confrontation between AI and humans, we see dynamic duos: co-creative directors formed by a designer and an AI working side by side. The AI as an infinite and immediate moodboard, as an tireless artisan proposing 100 variations of a motif in seconds; and the human as the supreme editor, curator, and sensitive soul who chooses, refines, and adds the touch of genius. In fact, some creators are already embracing this philosophy. Digital designer Baris Gencel, for example, stated: “I now see AI as a creative partner, … it has become like another member of my team”. This sentence encapsulates a vision of the future: AI does not replace the artist, but empowers them, freeing them from routine tasks and extending their imaginative capabilities. Many in the industry share this cautious optimism: the idea that fashion will always need a human vision at the helm, but that vision is set to soar higher with artificial wings.

Who will design the next Louis Vuitton? A brilliant data engineer hired by LVMH, or maybe a young designer who, alongside pencils and tablet, has AI models trained to their specifications in their toolbox. Maybe the culture of new digital luxury will be co-created: the guardians of the style of the houses contributing their heritage and sensitivity, while the tech giants offer the power of their elite algorithms. Ultimately, luxury has always been about telling desirable stories and creating dream objects. If AI can help make that dream more vivid, personalized, and surprising, it could very well become the next Coco Chanel or the next Louis Vuitton – even if it doesn’t wield tailor’s scissors but lines of code. As in every modern fairy tale, we’ll have to see if algorithmic magic can win the heart of fashion without stealing its soul. For now, the battle remains open, with imagination, data, and art intertwining in each new collection. The outcome – a reign of AI, of humans, or a creative marriage between both? – is yet to be defined. The only certainty is that we are witnessing the birth of an unprecedented luxury, where haute couture is written in Python and muses can also be machines. And in this thrilling adventure, the true winner will be the one who manages to program the emotion and excellence that define luxury, whether in the algorithm or in the soul, it matters little – because that never goes out of style.