Miquela, 19, is a "change-seeking robot" designed by Brud, an LA start-up
Credit: Brud
While Miquela may only exist in the virtual world, the social media star is bringing in real money. Each of her sponsored Instagram posts is thought to net Brud around $8,500 (£6,300) with the model reported to be making around $10m each year.
She isn’t the only one. A growing collective of CGI models is now making its mark on the $300bn fashion industry — and the pandemic has only helped their efforts.
Fashion industry ‘scrambling’
South African CGI Shudu Gram for example has modelled for Rhianna’s beauty brand Fenty and fronted campaigns for Ellesse and Balmain. Last year, she walked the red carpet as a hologram for the Bafta awards wearing a digital Swarovski dress.
Blawko, another digital avatar created by Brud, has modelled Yeezy trainers. It is estimated he makes around $1,000 per post. Virtual model Imma, meanwhile, has collaborated with brands including Porsche and Ikea and posed in the Japanese edition of i-D magazine alongside human models to promote Kanebo Cosmetics.
“You can still kind of tell these models are slightly fake, but you have to look closely,” says Bovell. “Especially as a millennial, we’re so accustomed to photos being constantly edited. So there is this blurred line of like, is this fake? Or is this someone that’s overly edited?”
Cameron-James Wilson, the British designer behind Shudu Gram, says fashion houses who previously dismissed virtual models are now approaching him for help with campaigns during lockdown: “The fashion industry has been scrambling, to be honest.”
Blawko is another digital avatar created by Brud
Credit: Brud/Brud
“There’s a big uplift at the moment,” adds Michael Musandu, co-founder of Amsterdam-based virtual modelling agency Lalaland. “Brands have needed help with how to keep up with their current processes… the issues with traditional photography have really made them look for alternatives.”
Synthetic models are relatively cheap, easy to work with and simple to scale. They do away with the need for venues, photographers, make-up artists and stylists.
“Their engagement is also through the roof,” claims Wilson. A report by Hype Auditor this year found virtual influencers had almost three times the engagement rate of real influencers.
Added to that are the environmental benefits. According to research agency Optoro, online returns contribute 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, and create around 2.2m tons of waste.
Virtual models could reduce that rate by giving designers models of different shapes, sizes and ethnicities to front their campaigns. Far from providing an unrealistic vision of beauty, Musandu believes synthetic humans can offer a more accurate depiction of the real world than flesh-and-blood models.
Virtual but diverse
“People want to see what reality looks like, and that reality is drawn from actually showing diversity,” he says.
“As a black man, I’m very underrepresented… It makes no sense that this is the way our main shopping works today, it literally makes no sense at all, which is very frustrating.”
There remain ethical concerns about creating virtual models with different ethnicities, particularly if they come with their own backstory and opinions. If a designer doesn’t have the same cultural background as their virtual model, should they be able to give their creation a voice?
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It’s a question Wilson has been forced to grapple with since creating Shud Gram. In a tweet, writer Bolu Babalola called Shudu Gram an image “contrived by a white man who has noticed the ‘movement’ of dark-skinned women”.
Wilson says he is aware that his background as a white male could be seen as problematic and has hired black writer Ama Badu to help make sure Shudu’s voice remains authentic.
“Having that viewpoint is so important when you are working with a 3D model that represents culture, that represents people,” he says. “There are so many things that I would never pick up on or never notice because of my upbringing and because of who I am.”
Shudu Gram is described as 'the world's first digital supermodel'
Credit: Cameron-James Wilson/Cameron-James Wilson
Putting models out of a job
Such moral issues of creating virtual humans have not stopped their rapid rise in fashion. Bovell says real-world models are yet to wake up to the reality of avatars taking over their jobs, something which she says could happen “in the next two years”.
And it’s not just CGIs they should worry about. Artificial intelligence that allows virtual models to learn from experience could prove even more devastating to the industry.
“E-commerce modelling involves a lot of micro movements, so you’re basically trying to find all of the different poses that would make the garment look the best, as fast and as efficiently as possible,” says Bovell who, as well as being a model, has founded Waye, an organisation that prepares the next generation for a future with advanced technologies.
“Using a CGI for that would be a nightmare, because you have to physically create it and move each thing by yourself as the editor, but AI allows for the model to move and do different poses.”
For now Bovell is preparing for the robotic shift in fashion by creating her own digital avatar that she says can work as yet another asset in her portfolio. Other supermodels, such as Bella Hadid, have also created realistic avatars of themselves capable of starring in campaigns anywhere in the world.
But models, she says, shouldn’t lose sight of their human qualities. “What is your story? What is your human brand? Being human is something completely unique… that’s something a digital construction can never authentically achieve.”
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