Zara is joining a growing number of fast-fashion brands leveraging AI to generate images of real models wearing different outfits. The technology allows the company to accelerate its design and production cycles, signaling a potential transformation in how fashion photography is created and consumed across the industry.
Zara’s move comes after Swedish competitor H&M revealed earlier this year that it had produced AI-generated clones of models for marketing purposes. European online fashion platform Zalando is also experimenting with AI to speed up the creation of product imagery, highlighting a broader shift in how fashion brands are embracing technology to streamline their operations.
“We are using artificial intelligence only to complement our existing processes,” a spokesperson for Zara owner Inditex told in a statement, as per Reuters. “We work collaboratively with our valued models – agreeing any aspect on a mutual basis – and compensate in line with industry best practice.”
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Zara’s AI initiative was first reported by London’s business-focused newspaper CityAM, which quoted an unnamed model saying the brand requested permission to digitally alter images of them with AI to showcase different outfits. The model added that they were compensated the same as they would have been for traveling to a traditional photo shoot.
Like Zara’s parent company Inditex, both H&M and Zalando have emphasized that AI is intended to support their creative teams and streamline workflows, rather than replace photographers or production staff, seeking to ease concerns about the technology’s impact on fashion shoots.
Inditex chair Marta Ortega, daughter of the company’s founder Amancio Ortega, has often expressed her passion for fashion photography in interviews. Since 2021, her MOP (Marta Ortega Pérez) Foundation gallery in A Coruña, the northern Spanish city where Zara was founded, has hosted exhibitions featuring the work of renowned photographers.
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The gallery is currently featuring Annie Leibovitz’s fashion photography, while past exhibitions have highlighted iconic photographers like Steven Meisel—who has worked closely with Zara—and Helmut Newton.
Ortega has also sought to reposition Zara as a more upmarket brand, reducing the number of stores to focus on larger, flagship locations with a more spacious and refined atmosphere.
Isabelle Doran, CEO of the Association of Photographers in London, cautioned that the adoption of AI could decrease opportunities for photographers, models, and production teams, affecting both established professionals and emerging fashion photographers trying to break into the industry.