Does AI Have a Place in Couture?

By: Madison Antino, Head Senior Writer Edited by: Tessa Reiner

If you take a look at Alexis Mabille’s Spring 2026 Haute Couture collection on Vogue Runway, you’ll notice a certain uncanny feeling as you click through the images. The gowns look eerily smooth; the models just slightly too perfect, with cartoon-like smooth skin and extra white smiles. That’s because nothing in these runway photos are real—they are all entirely generated by AI: the models, the runway, the audience, and the clothing. 

This couture week was full of debuts: Jonathan Anderson presented his very first couture collection at Christian Dior. So did Mathieu Blazy at Chanel. Alexis Mabille, however, made history as the first fashion house to debut a collection made with AI. Instead of experimenting with technology to assist in the design process, Mabille instead chose to let artificial intelligence do all of the work.

 Mabille’s decision was so shocking to viewers because AI is arguably the complete antithesis of what haute couture means. Haute couture is essentially the highest level of craftsmanship in fashion, and in order to be fully recognized as a designer of it, a fashion house must meet several specific requirements set by Paris’ Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM). The garments must be made-to-order inside of an atelier in Paris for private clients, by a team of at least 15 full-time staff and around 20 technical workers. Collections are presented twice, in January and July, and must contain a minimum of 50 looks ranging from day to evening wear. 

The term “Haute Couture” is legally protected by the Fédération, and not adhering to all requirements risks not being able to use the term to advertise collections or even being removed as an official member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. Mabille even stated that neither the Fédération or the show’s attendees were not made aware of the AI experiment in advance.

In Alexis Mabille’s show, all of the couture requirements were thrown away. The looks were not made in an atelier, they were generated by a computer. The trained staff, experts in embroidery and pattern-making, were not involved, even though expert level handiwork is what makes the craftsmanship of couture so special. Mabille stated, “I wanted to work with artificial intelligence in a different way. Usually, it's used in a degenerative way, feeding it ideas and it creates for you. Here, we did it differently: it was like having an extra person in the team in the studio.” This statement feels contradictory to the fact that a computer generating an entire collection did in fact remove an entire team of employees rather than add one.

The collection, or lack thereof since these looks and models don’t even exist, feels almost disrespectful to the couturiers that continue to push the limits of what fashion can be. A ballgown from Schiaparelli’s Fall 2026 Couture collection took more than 8,000 hours to construct, made up of 65,000 blue raw silk feathers, reported WWD. Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel couture of weightless, sheer skirt suits twinkling with teeny-tiny beads will allow clients to choose custom embroidery to add to any look from the collection of their choice, like initials, personal symbols, or zodiac signs, said Vogue Runway. 

It will be interesting to see if the clients in attendance of Alexis Mabille’s show will purchase these AI-generated looks, and how they will compare to the cartoonish versions presented at the show. The viewers watched through a screen, instead of getting to see the looks in movement right in front of them. How will these clients choose what pieces to purchase when the looks are not yet tangible, and they cannot feel the fabrics used? 

Alexis Mabille is obviously a talented designer, or else he wouldn’t have been accepted as a member of the Haute Couture Federation for all these years. So why waste all of his talent to let a computer do all the work for him and his equally talented team?

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