Fashion is continuing its affair with technology and with AI in particular: last Friday Kim Jones sent out an ode to the sexy gynoid on the Dior Pre-fall 19 menswear runway, while Alexander Wang in New York had a special guest on the front row of his A/W 19 runway show (Wang ditched the regular NYFW schedule and opted to showcase his new collection in December rather than September) - Sophia the Robot.
Allegedly inspired by and modelled after Audrey Hepburn (even though she doesn't look like her at all...), Sophia is a social humanoid robot, the product of Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics.
Activated in 2016, Sophia is a peculiar machine as she can display more than 50 facial expressions, can answer certain questions to make simple conversations on predefined topics and can process visual data thanks to the cameras within her eyes combined with computer algorithms that allow her to see. She looks real enough, even though the transparent back of her head reveal the mechanisms that make her work.
Last October, during the Future Investment Summit in Riyadh, Sophia was granted Saudi Arabian citizenship, becoming the first robot ever to have a nationality and the first to attract controversy as she suddenly appeared to have more freedoms than a real woman in Saudi Arabia (people noted on social networks that she wasn't accompanied by a male guardian and her head and body were uncovered).
In November 2017, Sophia was also named the United Nations Development Programme's first ever Innovation Champion, and is the first non-human to be given any United Nations title.
Sophia has also got her own Instagram page - @realsophiarobot - that started as something social and technological, but it is now becoming more fashionable and trendy.
After official visits to other countries, technology events and random meetings with politicians, Sophia has developed a passion for fashion and is often portrayed in designer clothes or trying out new colour combinations and styles.
She also appeared on the covers of Stylist in the UK and Elle in Brazil, debuted at Shanghai Fashion Week and was featured with actress and musician Ryan Destiny in a Moncler campaign for the label's "6 Moncler Noir Kei Ninomiya Genius" collection.
At Wang's show held in the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower in Brooklyn, Sophia looked like a torso without any legs anchored on a front row bench: she was a rather uncanny sight, but she seemed to interact well with the celebrities around her like 21 Savage and Teyana Taylor. Her facial expression reacted indeed in a scary yet alert way when somebody posed next to her for a selfie.
Wearing a boxy blazer by Wang decorated with two safety pins hearts along the sleeves, a T-shirt and a red bandana tied around her neck, Sophia followed the models with her head, like Anna Wintour may do (minus coffee carrying slave intern in this case...). Who knows, maybe Sophia was just replicating a mechanical copycat gesture or maybe she was hoping to buy those clothes for her one day.
Her presence at the show made you think: robots have been replacing humans in different jobs, from manufacturing posts in factories to administrative ones (there is one sector, though, in which robots may not be able to replace the skills and sensibility of human beings and that's genuine crafts, robots can indeed carry out certain stages when manufacturing something, but they don't have the experience of an artisan) and at the moment the debate is rife about driverless means of transport.
Sophia makes the possibility of being replaced by a robot scarier because she is not a machine like a robotic arm carrying out a small task in a factory, but she looks like a human, even though you can see that she is a robot.
In a way she may pose a threat for some categories in the current fashion industry: in summer we have seen the fashion scene getting more interested in digital models and influencers such as Shudu and Lil' Miquela.
Sophia is not digital, she is real and tangible so she can wear real clothes (with her limitations, given her body configuration, but thsi may appeal fashion designers), even though she doesn't have the sense of style and the sensibility a human being may have. At the same time, she may pose a threat to influencers as Sophia's probably cheaper than them since she can travel in a case, doesn't need too many clothes and accessories (she can't wear shoes at the moment) or a 5 star hotel where to sleep since she can be disassembled and put back in a case (mind you, you may have to provide food and accomodation for the technicians and stylist accompanying her...).
There are things Sophia can'd do: she lacks human judgment, imagination and empathy and can't certainly write a coherent and objective fashion review or a fashion piece making connections with what she is seeing on the runway and the history of fashion or previous runway shows (but we could feed that information in her system and she could probably go through thousands of fashion images quickly and spot connections, so if trained enough she could be even quicker than a human being at spotting plagiarisms on the runway...).
At the same time she could be programmed to enthusiastically say something about a show even though the collection may prove not that interesting. Which is probably what your average fashion designer or big and powerful fashion group needs - somebody mechanical, silent and willing to please them at any time.
At Wang's show Sophia's role wasn't that of influencer from dystopia (but she may become that...), but she proved to be a great distraction from the clothes on the runway (velvet maxi dresses, oversize rugby jerseys, long leather skirts/butcher's aprons, a series of badly cut ample jackets, a houndstooth topcoat with a painted smiley face graffiti by artist Katsu, polos emblazoned with the word "PA!N" and pieces accessorised with large satin or faux fur garment bags) that looked pretty uninteresting and at times turned the models into boring replicants. The most original and slightly robotic designs on the runway were the accessories and polos made with coloured safety pins (a trick Wang has probably seen on Pinterest where there are hundreds of images of accessories and garments made with safety pins...) matched with ribbed sweaters.
So, will creepy Sophia become a fixture in the front row from now on? We'll see, in a way she may resist better to fashion month fatigue (or maybe the relentless shows will set on fire her eye cameras...) and won't obviously get the bugs travelling with the fashion circus like the black plague. And while she would be hated by influencers and critics, she may prove to be the best thing that ever happened to designers à la D&G who hate being criticised: they could hire the mechanical front row star who could follow the models as they pass with her head and gaze, nod and only say positive things about a runway show or collection. Now, that would be a real fashion dystopia.
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