AI models in fashion: a guide to what brands are doing

Three years ago, an AI-generated model in a fashion campaign was a novelty. Today some of Europe's largest fashion retailers use AI imagery as a matter of routine, and an AI-generated model has appeared in a print advert in Vogue. This guide sets out what the term actually covers, what brands have done with it, the reasons they give, and the rules that now apply.

What people mean by "AI models"

The phrase is used for several different things, and the differences matter for anyone booking talent or being booked.

Fully synthetic models. People who do not exist, generated from scratch. Mango used them for a campaign for its teen line in July 2024, and a Guess advert in the August 2025 issue of Vogue featured one.
Digital twins. AI replicas of real models, built from photographs of them and used with their permission. H&M announced plans for 30 of them in March 2025.
AI edits of real shoots. Photographs of real models adapted after the shoot, for example to show another outfit or a different setting. Zara was reported to be doing this in December 2025.
Virtual characters. Computer-generated personalities with followings of their own, such as Lil Miquela, who first posted on Instagram in 2016. They predate today's generative tools.

Virtual try-on, where shoppers see clothes on themselves or on a choice of bodies, uses similar technology but is a separate subject, covered later in this series.

What brands have done

Levi Strauss & Co. (2023). In March 2023 the company announced a pilot with Lalaland.ai, an Amsterdam start-up founded in 2019, to test AI-generated models that would supplement its human models on product pages. It later clarified that the pilot would not replace its live photo shoots or its use of real models.

Mango (2024). In July 2024 Mango launched a campaign for its Mango Teen line made entirely with AI-generated models, produced by its own teams. The company has used AI since 2018 and says it has built more than fifteen AI-powered platforms, from design support to pricing.

H&M (2025). H&M said in March 2025 that it would create digital twins of 30 models, who would own the rights to their twins and be paid each time one was used. The first images appeared that July. "It's not a question of man versus machine, I think it's man and machine," its chief creative officer, Jörgen Andersson, said at the time.

Zalando (2025). The Berlin-based online platform told Reuters in May 2025 that around 70 per cent of the images in its editorial campaigns in the last quarter of 2024 had been generated with AI, cutting production time from six to eight weeks to three or four days. It was also developing digital twins of models.

Guess (2025). The August 2025 issue of Vogue carried a two-page Guess advert featuring a model generated by the agency Seraphinne Vallora, credited in small print. Vogue said it was the first time an AI-generated person had appeared in the magazine, and that the advert had not been an editorial decision.

Zara (2025). In December 2025, reports said Zara was using AI to show real models in additional outfits from a single shoot, with their agreement. Inditex, its owner, said: "We only use artificial intelligence to supplement our existing processes."

Luxury houses. Luxury brands have mainly used AI for conceptual visuals and motion: AI-generated imagery within a Jil Sander campaign in February 2025, AI-enhanced movement in Burberry imagery drawn from a 1980s campaign, and an AI-generated film for Valentino's DeVain bag in December 2025, clearly labelled as such.

The reasons brands give

Speed and volume come up most often. A large retailer publishes thousands of product images a season, and AI lets teams produce and refresh imagery in days rather than weeks. "We are using AI to be able to be reactive," Zalando's vice president of content solutions, Matthias Haase, told Reuters. Brands also point to cost, to showing a garment in more colours or settings without reshooting, and, among suppliers, to needing fewer physical samples. Most describe AI as a tool for their creative teams rather than a replacement: Haase said creative staff now had "instead of two hands, six hands".

The studios that make AI imagery say it is used most where volume is the challenge. "In e-commerce, the biggest pain point is volume," Jill Asemota, founder of the AI studio Parallel Pictures, told Glossy. "For campaigns, it's almost always an add-on."

The questions the industry is working through

Alongside the opportunities, models, photographers and their representatives have asked for three things: consent, so that no one's likeness is used without permission; fair pay when it is used; and transparency, so audiences know what they are looking at. Audiences appear to agree on the last point. In Getty Images research published in 2024, almost 90 per cent of more than 30,000 adults surveyed across 25 countries said they wanted to know whether an image had been created with AI.

The rules taking shape

New York. Since 19 June 2025, the Fashion Workers Act has required clear written consent, separate from the representation agreement, before a model's digital replica is created or used, setting out its scope, purpose, rate of pay and how long it will be used.
California. Since January 2025, a contract term letting a digital replica do work a performer would otherwise have done in person has been unenforceable if the use is not reasonably specific and the performer had no legal or union representation.
European Union. Since 2 August 2026, the AI Act has required businesses that publish deepfakes, meaning realistic AI-generated or AI-altered images, audio or video that could pass as real, to disclose them, and requires AI providers to mark generated content in a machine-readable way.
United Kingdom. English law has no standalone image or personality right. In March 2026 the government said it would explore options, including whether a new digital replica or personality right would help. Advertising rules apply in full, however an advert is made.
Elsewhere. Denmark has proposed amending its copyright law to give people control over realistic digital imitations of their face and voice. In the US, the NO FAKES Act, which would create a federal right over digital replicas, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2026.

What to watch

Three things will shape the next few years: whether consented, paid digital twins become standard practice for large retailers; how labelling rules change the way AI imagery is presented; and how far the technology moves into video, where keeping a garment accurate is harder. "When models start moving, the product can change or warp," Asemota said. Later pieces in this series look at each of these in detail.

Legal positions described here were checked in October 2026.