CRASHING THE SYSTEM: How AI will transform fashion — in addition to just about every other sector — is a matter of great discussion worldwide. But executives on the Johannesburg’s Sandton City Shopping Center in South Africa are exploring just that with a latest tech-driven ad campaign.

The digital campaign plays off last yr’s “City of Icons” campaign, which highlighted tried-and-true wardrobe staples just like the Little Black Dress, sunglasses, trenchcoat, denim, hoodie, suit, shoes, sunglasses handbags and lipstick. This time around there are AI-generated iterations of these things and other styles meant to magnify the campaign’s futurism theme.

The photographs juxtapose a model wearing a particular item similar to a hoodie with one created using a Midjourney Bot on Discord. This a generative artificial intelligence program is actually text-to-image AI. By submitting a text prompt, the bot then generates what’s described as “a stupendous piece of art” inside 60 seconds.

The campaign is supposed to encourage Sandton City shoppers to examine not only potential yet-to-be incarnations of the clothes, but in addition to purchase existing versions within the shopping mall’s many stores. The photographs and an explanatory video play up the ability of possibilities when technology and classics collide.

The retail, office and leisure space houses greater than 300 international and native brands. Visitors will find the AI-powered campaign on screens throughout the complex’s shopping mall, which is the primary six-star green-star shopping center within the African continent to receive that rating by the Green Constructing Council of South Africa.

To further spread the word vis social media, Sandton City has recruited “friends of the brand” similar to foodie, fashion and lifestyle specialist Naqiyah Mayat; actor Kyle Clark; fashion and wonder content creator Zoe Msutwana, and Victoria Duckitt. Other personalities with some sway in fashion, beauty, accessories and technology are also pitching in — Nafisa Akabor, Angie Detsikas, Europa Art Group’s director and buyer Melina Lambrakis, and Dior South Africa’s general manager Armine Anders.

Consumers can see the imagined staples and in addition find out how the project was dropped at a life in a behind-the-scenes six-part series that explains how the AI was leveraged by tuning in on Sandton City’s social media. There, they may even be clued in to how the shopping mall’s retailers are using AI to enhance and personalize their retail offerings.

In line with the forward-spinning outlook, an AI model, ChatGPT, was leveraged to script Sandton City’s social media component of the campaign, and an AI text to speech generator enhanced the voiceover recorded for the videos. By leveraging this iconic technology, the ambition is to reinforce its relationships with visitors to the centre, and play a task in the longer term of their imagination.