In August 2025, Guess ran a campaign in American Vogue featuring two AI-generated models—Vivienne and Anastasia—created by London-based agency Seraphinne Vallora. The images sparked viral backlash, with readers calling them “disturbing” and “unobtainable”. The models were not editorial features but paid advertisements, yet their presence in Vogue marked a cultural shift: synthetic beauty had entered the mainstream.

She is admired globally, yet doesn’t exist anywhere. She is the JPEG in haute couture. Schrödinger’s Model: alive in pixels, absent in the flesh.

The AI model doesn’t just illustrate beauty’s evolution—she exposes its fracture.

• Beauty isn’t cultivated—it’s computed.
  Seraphinne Vallora used real models to inform poses and styling, then generated idealized composites.

• Perfection is theatrical, not truthful.
  Her features are optimized for engagement, not expression.

• Aspiration becomes automation.
  We no longer dream to become—we scroll to consume.

Other companies are scaling this approach. Amsterdam-based Lalaland.ai, recently acquired by Browzwear, offers customizable AI models for fashion brands. Their tech promises inclusivity and sustainability—but also raises questions about labour displacement and aesthetic homogenization.

What does it mean to have fame without friction?

• Her brand grows. But she has no agency.

• Her beauty circulates. But no one consented to its source.

• Her identity performs. But no one lives beneath the surface.

Guess co-founder Paul Marciano personally selected Vivienne and Anastasia from multiple drafts. Their features were curated, not born. Their careers began in a prompt, not a portfolio.

This isn’t just about synthetic influencers. It’s about how ideals, once aspirational, have become disembodied simulations.

In my last written piece, Schrödinger’s JPEG, I asked: what does it mean to own an image that’s infinitely replicable, perpetually intangible?

The AI model is the next iteration of that paradox:

• She is used, admired, monetized—but never touches the earth.

• She is visible without existence, valuable without autonomy.

She doesn’t exist as a person. She exists as performance.

We have created beauty without bodies, value without voices. The catwalk has become quantum: both empowering and exploitative, aspirational and alienating.

Even before AI, fashion imagery was a battleground of unattainable ideals. Photoshop, filters, and retouching created illusions that few could live up to. AI simply removes the human element altogether. No pores. No fatigue. No aging. Just a flawless, frictionless fantasy.

Fashion has long been obsessed with perfection—symmetry, youth, slenderness, flawlessness. These ideals have been curated through decades of airbrushing, lighting tricks, and now, generative algorithms. AI doesn’t just replicate beauty standards—it amplifies them. Every pixel is optimized, every shadow calculated. The result? A model that doesn’t just look perfect—it is perfect, by design.

But perfection is a moving target. And when it’s defined by machines trained on biased datasets, it risks becoming a monoculture of beauty—one that excludes the very diversity fashion claims to celebrate…

And yet, this fantasy is marketed as aspirational. The danger lies in normalization—when synthetic perfection becomes the baseline, human beauty feels inadequate by comparison.

Let’s not ask whether synthetic beauty is "good" or "bad." That binary misses the point. The question is:

What does it cost—to make perfection so frictionless?

We’re building ideals that can be owned but never lived, admired but never known. In doing so, we risk turning humanity itself into a disruption—flawed, felt, unoptimized.

• Job Displacement: Human models face existential threats as brands opt for cheaper, faster, and more controllable AI avatars.

• Authenticity Crisis: Consumers are left wondering what’s real. If every campaign is synthetic, does fashion lose its soul?

• Mental Health Impact: Unrealistic beauty standards already harm self-esteem. AI models push these standards into the realm of the impossible.

The AI beauty standard reveals a cultural rift: between what we think is aspirational and what is ethical. As artists, technologists, and philosophers, we must interrogate not just what we create, but why—and for whom.

• Should fashion brands disclose AI usage more transparently?

• Can AI be used to promote inclusivity rather than erase it?

• Is there a moral obligation to preserve human representation in visual culture?

The answers aren’t binary. But the questions are urgent.

AI-generated models are not just tools—they’re cultural artifacts. They reflect our values, our biases, and our aspirations. If fashion is to remain a mirror of society, it must confront the ethical implications of its new muse.

Because in the pursuit of perfection, we risk losing the beauty of imperfection—the very thing that makes us human.

Dan | BloqDigital is a lighting designer and digital artist based in the UK, who writes about Art, Technology, Web3 and Culture.

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Unreal Ideals and the Rise of Synthetic Beauty

When perfection becomes programmable, the pursuit of humanity turns radical.