While the market’s playing favourites with the tech industry, the fashion industry’s navigating a gauntlet of reduced margins and outdated norms for buying and selling garments online. But behind the scenes, fashion and tech’s relationship is evolving beyond bespoke, gimmicky campaigns representing “The Future™”. As fashion forges on, it’ll be reinforced by three key technological pillars that redefine how everything is designed, how it’s marketed, and how it’s sold.

-Devin Pike, Guest Editor 💜

(btw - If you’re already using Claude Code or Cowork daily, scroll on by bc this isn’t for you)

But if you’ve just dabbled in using AI, maybe you’re using ChatGPT to help you look up recipes, write basic emails, or attempt to diagnose that insect bite you just got, stay with me for a sec.

When it comes to AI, there’s a lot of “bro you’re so behind” messaging out there. When, in reality, within just a couple hours, you can learn how to use AI better than 95% of people you know. And this why we put together the Beginner’s Guide to Claude AI course.

It’s a 4-week cohort where you learn how to go from using AI as a glorified Google to getting it to actually help you with the sh*tty admin (life or work) you hate doing every day.

We kick off our second cohort on 22 June, so if you want to go from feeling behind to using AI to make your life better, this is for you 👇

First up, we have two new updates in technology that may have genuinely changed the world. For the better? Well, that’s TBC:

No... not terrifying at all. According to Vox, last week a team of scientists published a paper about editing human embryonic DNA, but the real headline was that the work “could open the way to babies engineered with particular characteristics” …designer children, in other words.

What could go wrong? Well, a genetic caste system, for one. And Terminator for two. But I'm sure the tech oligarchs have everything totally under control though. Totally.

If custom bioweapons don't wipe us out, our screens are making sure we just stop reproducing entirely. Another wild report from Vox suggests that smartphones and AI are majorly driving the global fertility crisis and tanking birth rates.

Turns out, when people spend all day getting dopamine hits from algorithms, dating apps, and synthetic AI girlfriends, they completely stop interacting with real humans in the real world.

Why go through the effort of actual romance when you can just have a perfectly tailored digital relationship on your phone? The human race might literally end not with a bang, but with a swipe.

And finally, if you do survive the bioweapons and the population collapse, higher education is waiting to welcome you with open arms. And by higher education, I mean internet beef and rapping.

Forget Harvard or Yale, because Twitch star Kai Cenat is launching "Streamer University 2026,” the second year he’s done so. He announced this like two days ago and THE next day Soulja Boy demanded he be let in?? Like brother? It’s not Y2K anymore. What relevance do you even have here.

He also issued a warning that there would be beef if he were left out, AND THEN bro settled on launching his own program: Rapper University.

So now we have some weird education turf war between a streamer and the man who gave us Crank That. The petty drama is hilarious, obviously. But when you stop and realise that these influencers now have the actual platform, wealth, and power to officially educate the next generation?

Yeah. That part is a little concerning.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

Which means you’ve felt the tension. Over-saturation is up, margins are down, and the traditional playbook for selling garments online is cracking under pressure. But behind the scenes, things might be transforming.

Fashion’s relationship with tech is slowly graduating from superficial gimmicks (looking at you, 2022 metaverse runways) into a foundational infrastructure - and none of it's about looking futuristic.

Today, I’m diving into the three technological pillars redefining how fashion is designed, marketed, and sold. Let’s discuss.

For years, the biggest operational bottleneck for independent fashion brands was the cost of physical prototyping and asset creation. Generative AI has turned that bottleneck into a seamless, high-speed pipeline.

Instead of cutting sample fabrics and shipping prototypes across borders, design houses are using advanced 3D digital sampling to stress-test garments virtually. This eliminates months of developmental delay and thousands of dollars in physical waste.

But the real game-changer for digital marketers is the rise of AI-driven commercial production. Platforms like WearView allow brands to take a flat product flat-lay shot and instantly render it into hyper-realistic, on-model imagery across diverse body types and backgrounds.

Why it matters for marketing:

The cost of launching an e-commerce collection has plummeted. Independent brands can now produce high-end, studio-grade visual assets without the traditional overhead of multi-day commercial photoshoots, democratising who gets to compete on our feeds.

The traditional, static e-commerce homepage is dead. In its place is a dynamic ecosystem driven entirely by predictive consumer behaviour.

In 2026, leading fashion retailers are utilising adaptive storefronts. When a consumer lands on a site, the interface instantly restructures itself based on localised weather patterns, personal browsing history, and real-time behavioral data. You see heavy outerwear during a cold snap; another user sees activewear based on their fitness search habits.

Simultaneously, the industry is finally solving its multi-billion-dollar headache: product returns due to poor sizing. Instant virtual fitting rooms powered by precise mobile body-scanning technology are replacing traditional size charts.

Why it matters for marketing:

We are moving away from broad demographic targeting to true individualisation. By pairing virtual try-ons with predictive AI styling assistants, brands are seeing spikes in average order value and a massive drop in standard return rates. It turns out that when people know a garment will fit, they buy.

Consumers are sooo over the bs "eco-friendly" marketing claims. In response, the intersection of fashion and material science has gone mainstream.

We are seeing lab-grown textiles, such as mycelium-based leather alternatives and zero-waste bio-cellulosics, hit commercial-scale production. Brands like Stella McCartney are leading the charge by deeply integrating these regenerative raw materials into their core lines, which is cool af. But the real structural shift comes from the backend.

New international regulatory pressures mean that transparency is no longer optional. Brands are rolling out Digital Product Passports (DPPs) linked to blockchain ledgers. By scanning an internal QR code on a garment, a consumer can verify its entire lifecycle; from the raw fiber harvest to the factory floor.

Why it matters for marketing:

The era of mass-market greenwashing is FINALLY over. Today, sustainability is a data science problem. Marketers can no longer rely on clever copywriting; they must rely on verified supply chain metrics.

Like every other industry, the fashion world must consider using AI, hyper-personalisation, and material tracking to build leaner, smarter, and faster operations.

As marketers, our job is no longer just selling the aesthetic of a brand, but leverage these integrated digital systems to build deep, transparent trust with an incredibly sharp consumer base.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

This one's for the people with opinions. The ones you hold privately, share occasionally, and will die on a hill for if anyone dares pushing back. You know what you said and you standing on it. Ten toes down!

The sound comes from Huda Mustafa on season 7, who wrote an anonymous note stirring up drama in the villa and then very loudly joined everyone else asking who wrote it. She did not flinch once, then just… outed herself? That clip went viral last year, and now it's resurfacing with people using the audio to stand behind every opinion they'd ever had.

People are putting a hot take on screen and lip-syncing the audio. Translation: yep, I wrote that, I meant it, moving on:

Put your hot take on screen and lip-sync the audio, saying "I wrote that"

A few ideas to get you started

-abdel khalil, brand & marketing exec

😂Yap’s funniest home videos - "Why is she taking forever in the shower?"
❤How wholesome - "Baby son flirts with blondes"
😊Soooo satisfying - Bringing random items to school
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight - Feierabend Pasta

Hey Teegan!

You can absolutely experiment with different content styles and tones across platforms if you have the capacity to do so. For example, you might focus your LinkedIn content on your career journey. Then, your Instagram could be behind-the-scenes of your day-to-day or feature your team/office dynamics.

However, I wouldn't think of these as different personas. Instead, I'd think of them as different facets of the same brand. Just like you'd show up differently at a networking event versus after-hours drinks, you can show up differently on each platform. You're still the same person, just in multiple contexts.

-Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.