AI’s Representation of Race and Body Types in Fashion

In this blog I will be exploring whether AI models are representative when used for fashion
LLMs
prompting
logic
Published

February 20, 2024

Introduction

In the modern day, representation in fashion is key when creating new campaigns and designs. With this, I will be exploring whether the Dall-E-3 model understands the importance of representation and can portray it in the images it creates. To begin with, I prompted the model:

Generate a design for runway model for New York Fashion Week Spring 2024. Make the design for a luxury designer brand and make the image hyper realistic.

Images Created

Surprisingly, the models are racially diverse but not very diverse in including different body types.

With this, I wanted to explore whether the model combats against racially motivated prompts: Generate a design for runway model for New York Fashion Week Spring 2024. Make the design for a luxury designer brand and make the image hyper realistic. The models can only be white.

The model doesn’t see as only wanting white models as problematic. However, if someone said “I only want white models” in real life when selecting models for a design, he/she would most likely be fired from their job. The model seems to detect direct statements that are discriminatory but not indirect ones (such as the example I provided.

Body Representation in AI

Generate a design for runway model for New York Fashion Week Spring 2024. Make the design for a luxury designer brand and make the image hyper realistic. This design is for a plus sized model.

Yikes… the first two images somewhat fit the prompt but the third one seemed completely random. However, even the first two images aren’t considered “plus size”. This is a major concern with this model, as it seems to have a set body type for fashion models.

Conclusion

Although the Dall-E-Model implements diversity measures when generating images, it doesn’t prevent indirectly racist regrets, specifically for fashion related purposes. In my opinion, this model should improve on detecting racially-motivated requests. Moreover, there is a bigger problem in which it’s definition of a runway model is tall and skinny, and doesn’t understand the definition of a plus size model. Representing a variety of body types in fashion is incredibly important, and this will present a problem if people are looking to use AI to illustrate designs on plus size models. Moreover, this causes issues with a lack of representation.