Artificial Intelligence is changing the way we are living our lives. Be it market analysis, predicting trends and or even the fashion industry, says RUPAL DALAL

Technology has had a monumental impact on the world and is changing the fashion industry by leaps and bounds. The newage digitisation has pushed fashion consumer towards a new digital-self, a digital social image which they want to live up to. Touted as one of the major ideas in the field of fashion for the current year, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing a complementary role in the fashion design department.

When Karolina Kurkova walked the runway for Manus X Machina: Fashion in an age of Technology at the Met Gala 2016, little did people know that the Marchesa dress she is wearing for the Tech White Tie code has actually been designed and put together by Watson, IBM’s I. Marchesa collaborated with IBM to come up with the first cognitive dress which was not only researched upon by Watson, but was also designed based on the inspiration and colour provided by Watson after researching and analysing previous data.

Though AI emerged in the fifties and according to many observers the present AI boom began about seven years ago and it followed a series of ups and downs which are often referred to as AI summers and winters. The magnitude of the present wave of AI can be measured with the fact that fifty percent of the patents related to artificial intelligence have been filed in the last seven years since its emergence in 1950s.

AI is believed to integrate textile industry with evolved production quality cost, cutting back-end costs, improving operations process, informed statistics and process control and on time manufacturing. According to WGSN Forecast (Constellation research), by 2020, AIce market will surpass $40 billions and will exceed $100 billions by 2025.

Artificial Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence will elevate human experience by opening up new creative opportunities. AI has the capacity to automate gruelling and reiterative tasks at effective speed allowing the designers to concentrate on problem solving and working on tasks which require manual assistance and supervision.

The fashion industry aims at creating a personalised and one on one service for its customer making it exclusive and artificial intelligence is helping them with the cause. Retailers are using machines and AI-powered software to understand the customers need and offering solution making the buying experience a one on one service. Burberry, Thom Browne, and Harvey Nichols have teamed up with FarFetch to increase their visibility in the millennial market.

The field of design is evolving beyond the traditional idea of decoration and innovating garments which combine practicality with fantasies to create sensorily enhanced experience which is equal parts aesthetically stimulating. Dutch Designer Bart Hess is conveying the idea of transformation by using AI and blurring the lines between technology and design.

The product is described as a mutation of half textile and half human and according to official description Hess is fascinated by the idea of physically morphing the body using latex to liquefy and sculpt the body, creating a physical alternative to the virtual morphosis.

Bio-ceramic textiles which provide thermal insulation, thermal dry system, infra red emitting technology are some of the intelligent categories of textiles which are being developed keeping the exertions related with physical activities.  These similar types of textiles offer thermal insulation to the body, adjusting the temperature according to body heat, providing breathability.

AI has made this task efficient by providing colour solution. It becomes the highest priority of a designer to get precise colour quality amongst various blends of fabric as same colours tend to come differently on different fabrics due to the nature of the blend. AI can help in getting the accurate colour quality during dyeing and printing as well.

Conspicuous technology and augmented aesthetic is the trend for upcoming five years. The coming decade would be life changing for the technology industry and it advocates an age of system. We will move from product-focused thinking in design to systematically generated design. Interactive and sensory textiles along with trickle up technology will be challenging for designers to tackle. Development of variations in AI fabric blends is still ongoing and needs multi discipline frontier technology which can investigate its comfort and predict its properties.

AI products and projects would only derive information from the date provided and fed into the system and hence the learning curve would be zero as opposed to humans. They would lack the ability and adaptability to make decisions and come up with creative ideas. The complexity of AI generated system would be analysed in future when they would have been a recurring or an integral part of industry. At present, their limitations lie in various sectors which would require a detailed research and analysis to overcome. Till the time AI is able to generate creative concepts by itself, designers would keep on innovating and experimenting.

The writer is Executive Director, JD Institute of Fashion Technology