Fashion’s AI era: Face swaps and digital clones

Head of the British Fashion Model Agents Association John Horner poses for a photograph during an interview in London on July 2. | REUTERS

Oct 28, 2026

LONDON – AI-generated fashion models present a tantalizing opportunity for brands: the ability to create lifelike images for their retail websites while cutting costs by 90% or more compared to photo shoots with human models.

For the modeling industry, the technology poses an existential threat because of scant regulation governing the ownership or use of digital twins. Fashion models face the risk of unpaid replication of their image — or replacement by entirely synthetic models.

To understand how AI is upending the economics of fashion modeling, Reuters interviewed 15 model-agency directors and reviewed more than a dozen confidential photo-shoot contracts in which brands including Diesel, Calvin Klein and L’Oreal detailed proposed terms for AI-created alterations and future use of the images.

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