Project Runway doesn’t pay its models (at least not in the early seasons), and I’m assuming they really get paid in exposure and whatever food is still edible on their bodies after designers were sent to the grocery store to make clothes out of corn husks. In honor of this Kafkaesque fashion model reality, where every season there seems to be an “unconventional materials” challenge, I’ve created today’s series of AI arrangements.
I was impressed by today’s session because without prompting, Bing’s Dall.e not only transformed the model, but also the runway.
There are no eyes to fix, if your prompt asks for a material that usually doesn’t have eyes anyway.
Producers of the popular reality-TV series have put models in groceries, trash bags, newspaper, hardware store washers, skin shredding sheets of metal, chicken wire, shower curtains, table clothes, and sometimes, nothing at all.
I discard a lot of renders that don’t show the full body. Despite prompt attempts (fullbody, full-length body shot), it looks like chopped off heads and incomplete shots are just the cost of doing business with AI generated art. In this case, I asked for fashion models smeared with chocolate, and I opted to keep the chopped up image because it gave the shot the quality of realism; as if an unawares photographer managed to capture the right moment during a model’s walk, but not the right framing. Also, I want to eat his hair, and again, if there are no feet, there’s nothing to fix.
In at least one episode one of the straight, male designers admitted he was “very distracted” by a busty model, but managed to compose as himself since the professionalism level expected is “just like a doctor.” He sent her down the runway exposed anyway. In honor of her sacrifice, I have tortured some fashion models artificially instead.
This is for you, Dre Davis. I fixed her face with the TenCent tool but I just kind of let her hands melt with what appears to be muenster cheese. Ignore the ham foot.
I don’t know why he is wearing a mask, but I suppose I have seen masquerade ball masks at Fashion Week. I’m mostly just impressed with the mess the AI made of the runway though.
I’m even more impressed with the mess on the runway with this pepto bismol version. If you look closely the drag marks look similar to if models made their rounds on the runway. The audience in all of these look like chiaroscuroed undefined masses, taking away somewhat from the realism of the render. That said, getting what looks like pumps and sandals and some annoying person livestreaming in the front row is pretty on-point.
I am heartened by how we can ethically torture runway models in AI and make them wear meat or whatever, but worry what we are teaching to our AI children about the unnecessary suffering we cause in the name of seasonality.
Join me in rejecting seasonality. Wear clothes that are timeless. Bring back robes, so I have less feet to render.
There’s no progress gif this week because I forgot to record it. I have spared you probably 10 frames of me attempting to render models covered in crude oil.
… aaaaaand nothing of value was lost.
These scare me