Style vs craft: Turning AI designs into IRL clothes

Sign up to receive the Vogue Business newsletter for the latest luxury news and insights, plus exclusive membership discounts. Are robots coming for our jobs? Maybe not, but they can certainly help us reimagine them, and potentially even overcome the constraints of our training. Take Lulu Li’s Moncler collection for instance. An award-winning Chinese artist, Li is also the founder of design studio Didelidi, creating AI fashion collections and the campaigns around them using softwares like Runway and Midjourney. With Moncler, she went one step further and turned one of the AI-generated collections into IRL ready-to-wear for the first time. The Moncler x Lulu Li project collection, which includes a capsule of down jackets, a vest and an edit of “city-ready layers”, according to the press release, hits Moncler stores in China today and will be available globally from 28 October. But it was first unveiled last Saturday, during Moncler’s City of Genius activation in Shanghai. At the centre of Li’s pavilion was a mirrored hexagonal chamber showcasing the collection’s star item, a gigantic cream puffer gown (available to purchase exclusively at Harrods). I had the pleasure of grabbing a coffee with Li a few hours before I got to see all that, to discuss the collection as well as the implications AI brings to art and fashion. Vogue: How did this collaboration with Moncler come about? I’ve been exploring generative AI tools since about 2020/2021. I remember seeing the first generative images come out — they were fantastical, like they came out of fairytales. And I felt that aesthetic was getting a little tiring. So I started playing around, trying to simulate the steps of putting together a fashion collection — the clothes, the lookbook shots, the runway... I think that was actually an interesting angle because it also has a very practical application — you can literally see what the final product would look like on the runway. So I did quite a few. I was having a lot of fun with it and I posted some of the images on Instagram. In the summer of 2023, Moncler reached out saying they wanted to collaborate. But back then there were a lot of crypto scammers and I initially thought that’s what it was. I was also sceptical because I am not in fashion — I don’t actually have the training to make garments. But they said they had a big team to help with that. And that’s how it started. Vogue: What was the process of putting together the Moncler collection? There were a lot of meetings at the beginning because we were trying to figure out what was possible and what was expected. I probably came up with three different collections — printing everything, presenting everything — which was quite overwhelming, so then one of the Moncler team said to me, ‘Lulu, it’s too much.’ We focused on one of the collections and from that, we picked about 10 pieces to work on. I then had to figure out how those designs would actually translate in real life. Vogue: Did you have to deal with AI hallucinations — like third sleeves or five-legged trousers? We did. The tools are really good overall, but when it comes to the details in terms of construction, there was work to be done. For example, there was a piece hanging from the jackets in one of the images and it looked really good. But it had no real application — I didn’t know what it was. So it was interesting working to figure it out — adjust it, maybe remove it — and still keep the look. Vogue: What then? Well then, we had to work out how much each padding should weigh. How big the cushion should be. What material, and so on. Which was very technical and I have no hands-on experience in that. So I went to Milan in September 2023 to work with the samples in person and I followed Moncler’s technical lead on the physical creation process. Vogue: What did it feel like seeing the collection as real items for the first time? It was magical. I work with virtual reality images, so obviously to see them turning into ready-to-wear that will eventually be in stores, it’s too much to actually process. I can only imagine how many people and resources were mobilised for this to be possible. Vogue: Your work plays on those themes, right — what is reality? Where does the artist begin and end? I am aware of how technology can help artists. And whether technology somehow could force artists to obey a certain grammar — like for example with paint, there’s specific ways to use different types of paint to make it work. It’s the same with AI; you should work in a specific way for this AI tool to work to your benefit. Vogue: How do you figure out how best to use the tools? Do you have a specific way of exploring possibilities and capabilities, or is it more trial and error? I think that actually goes a little deeper. You end up wondering: is AI thinking? Or does it look like it’s thinking? Is it providing answers based on information already baked in it or is it going off on a tangent to give you another open possibility? But fundamentally, it’s not sentient. It doesn’t have self-awareness. These kinds of tools give you almost infinite choices in latent, mathematical space. And sure, you can explore that. Maybe human beings cannot handle that large capacity of varieties. Sure. But personal taste really comes into play, and there’s an incredible amount of choosing that the artist needs to do there. Vogue: So, style remains at the core of creation. I think that it’s become the key thing. Instead of judging art on the craft, you judge it on taste. Perhaps you don’t need to paint anymore because the machine can do it for you. But what is your point? You’re the one making decisions. You are actually guiding this thing into a final look step by step. I’ve had many discussions on this with fellow artists: what is the difference between having an AI help me and a studio of artists, craftspeople, project managers? I guess it depends on how you use each of them. These are silent codes. How do you work with that fluidity, the unpredictable changeability of humans and how do you channel it towards creativity? I think that’s important to put at the centre of your practice rather than compare it with what the machines can do. Otherwise I can go home and do everything with machines. I don’t have to work with so many people. Vogue: Was there a moment in the process of creating this collection that pushed you in a way that you discovered something about yourself? I told my friends, I was about to do fashion and nobody believed it. They were like, ‘You will make posters?’ I said, ‘No, I’m making clothes. I don’t know how, but it’s happening.’ AI can now help artists who have an interest in certain directions. A lot of people go into fashion because there’s a very specific process for it. So now we can work backwards. I can build buildings too if I want to, you know? The possibility is frightening. It’s really almost too much to handle. Vogue: Especially in fashion, there are a lot of conversations surrounding the importance of creative directors and how everyone wants to be one. Some people venture out too big, too soon. I used to work in post-production when I was younger and I struggled a lot with my own ego. Being a part of the creative chain requires everybody’s effort in order to have the final result. I’m Buddhist and we specifically deal with the ego side of things. You can be really good at what you do, but it always takes like 3,000 people to make any vision come to life. You know, everybody is important. And everybody is not that important. I like focusing on collaborative forces in order to manifest something. Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com. More from this author: ‘The Genius for Asia’: Moncler soars in Shanghai The final takeaways from Paris Fashion Week Paul Costelloe on 40 years of London Fashion Week

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