Designers are as curious and cautious about AI as the rest of us. The new technology has been used at basic levels to create prints and to write at least one press release (Stine Goya). Last season Collina Strada and Heliot Emil dove deeper, experimenting with the tech as a design partner. Now Nehera’s Ladislav Zdút and team are dipping their toes into the subject with an ingenious, pre-fall 2024 collection that considers the perfect imperfection of both machine and human error.
“Beyond the mind-boggling power of algorithms, there are charming little glitches, sudden existential reflections, accidental poetry, and unintended humor,” reads the press release. As Zdút previewed some of them on a Zoom, he was careful to make a distinction between what he called a garment’s “envelope” and its functionality. While many pieces have “certain visual twists from the outside,” he explained, “inside, it’s a perfect fit.”
Take the four-sleeve coats and dresses, for example. They are engineered so that you can wear either set of sleeves, letting the empty two fly free or tie them together into a belt. In addition to deconstructed collars, there is one that resembles a shirt cuff. What’s described as a patchwork jacket in tones of gray has an asymmetric inset; it’s what the team imagines AI’s misplacement of pattern pieces might look like. Iterating on this idea, the collection includes many fabric mixes, both in single designs, like an ivory cashmere robe coat with quilted sleeves (a minimalist’s dream), or multiple ones created via layering and styling.
The collection is titled Before the Storm, and wavy two-color knits and speckle tweeds create a visual texture or unrest relating to that idea. Yet this is a glass-half-full collection, one that’s meant to be comforting physically (puffer anorak, anyone?) and psychologically. The theme could have easily led the clothes into surreal territory, but by some sleight of hand that’s been avoided. Meaning, for example, that sleeve scarves of wool twill don’t look disembodied; rather they seem to embrace the wearer and keep her warm—something no algorithm can achieve.
