The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
On March 22, 2024, at The Times Center in New York, The Business of Fashion hosted the BoF Professional Summit on New Frontiers: AI, Digital Culture and Virtual Worlds. Watch on-demand now to learn from leaders at brands including LVMH, Calvin Klein, Norma Kamali, e.l.f. Beauty and Roblox.
Over the past year, the buzz about Artificial Intelligence has been inescapable, and we’ll be looking at the ways it’s having an impact across the fashion industry. Recently I’ve been reading “Filterworld,” the new book by New Yorker writer Kyle Chayka, about how algorithms have flattened culture. We’ll get a chance to hear directly from Chayka about the tremendous influence they have on what we see and what we like.
AI has enormous creative potential, too. Legendary designer Norma Kamali has been developing a custom model in partnership with the firm Maison Meta to help carry on her legacy after she leaves her company, and they’ll be on hand to discuss the ambitious, unprecedented plan.
If there’s another topic people couldn’t stop talking about, it was Calvin Klein’s steamy ads featuring “The Bear” actor Jeremy Allen White. In our session on Digital Culture, we’ll hear from chief marketing officer Jonathan Bottomley about the campaign and how the company is approaching brand marketing in the internet age.
Meanwhile, the hype around web3 and the metaverse has vanished, but that doesn’t mean the underlying technologies have, especially with Apple’s recent release of its Vision Pro headset. LVMH vice president of digital innovation Nelly Mensah will reveal how the luxury giant is approaching these frontiers, with practical lessons for others. Separately, Chris McGrath, vice president of product and innovation at Timberland, and footwear designer Joey Khamis will dive into how they’re using virtual reality in the design process.
Also taking the stage at the event will be guests from e.l.f. Beauty and Roblox, founders using AI to bring transparency to fashion’s supply chain and many others.
I hope you can join us in person in New York or via the global livestream. Sign up here to reserve your space.
Marc Bain
Technology Correspondent
The Business of Fashion
BoF Professional Summit – New Frontiers: AI, Digital Culture and Virtual Worlds is made possible in part through our partners Ekimetrics, ZERO10 and The Invisible Collection.
Brands are using them for design tasks, in their marketing, on their e-commerce sites and in augmented-reality experiences such as virtual try-on, with more applications still emerging.
Brands including LVMH’s Fred, TAG Heuer and Prada, whose lab-grown diamond supplier Snow speaks for the first time, have all unveiled products with man-made stones as they look to technology for new creative possibilities.
Social networks are being blamed for the worrying decline in young people’s mental health. Brands may not think about the matter much, but they’re part of the content stream that keeps them hooked.
After the bag initially proved popular with Gen-Z consumers, the brand used a mix of hard numbers and qualitative data – including “shopalongs” with young customers – to make the most of its accessory’s viral moment.