Shereen Wu says leading designer uploaded altered picture, amid fears AI could ‘turn back the clock’ on progress in the industry
Why would the designer post the altered “fan art” to his IG, especially without commenting? Got caught and now he’s trying to cover his ass.
Perhaps the designer had no clue the face had been changed. Seems more like he doesn’t want to admit that he didn’t realize the face had been altered. They hold tons of these events and there are so many models wearing many different outfits. Maybe he just recognized the dress and shared.
Excellent point!
This is a great example of how people are blind to their own bigotry (I guarantee they saw nothing wrong with this, which is why they proudly posted it), and why titles like “racist” aren’t self imposed, but given by others who can clearly see and/or are impacted directly by the bigot’s actions.
He’s denying it, yet it clearly has been changed.
Welcome to modeling!
This story is as old as photography itself.
So… Models should just expect racism, and that’s just… cool with you?
smmfh… 🤦♀️
Wow your imagination really took off there, because that… is not what I said.
The story mentions AI to make this sound like something new and specific to AI. Whereas both heavy editing of portraits/videos, and Eurocentric beauty standards, are basically as old as photography itself.
I’m fine with criticizing the industry for racist stereotypes; can’t we also criticize it for perpetuating the myths of unrealistic perfect bodies and complexions?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a TikTok about the incident that has been viewed 1.8m times in the last week, Shereen Wu says Michael Costello, a designer who has worked with Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, and Celine Dion, posted a photo to his Instagram from a recent Los Angeles fashion show.
In a statement posted to Instagram on Thursday and deleted less than 24 hours later, Costello denied altering the photo and said the image was “fan art” sent to him by an unspecified source, but he “took responsibility” for sharing it.
While the origin of the altered runway photo is unknown, Wu believes someone – she doesn’t know who – used AI to create the white face that covered hers, a theory Costello echoed in his Instagram post.
“The modified image of Shereen spotlights the possibility that an AI program that has absorbed mainstream beauty preferences may erase the race of a model altogether, turning back the clock on the fashion industry’s progress toward diversity on the runway,” Scafidi said.
As the Cut reported, Costello added to the pile-on, sharing screenshots via Instagram of a supposed DM conversation with Teigen that left him “traumatized, depressed” with “thoughts of suicide”.
After Costello’s threat of legal action over her viral Tiktok, Wu contacted the Model Alliance, an advocacy group for fashion workers, which referred her to a lawyer.
The original article contains 1,032 words, the summary contains 222 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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shes so gorg
