The Rise of Digital Models: Fashion’s New "It Girl" Who's Not Even Human

The fashion industry is known for thinking out of the box and challenging everyday norms. It’s from these seemingly unconventional ideas that new trends come into fruition, how celebrities get prosthetic jewelry implanted into their necks and why we get to sometimes see models walk down the runway with fake third breasts.

In this day and age, anything goes.

Now, with technology and social media becoming the new forefront for brand and business promotion, the increasing use of technology in fashion doesn’t come at a surprise.

Miquela Sousa, or as she is more widely known by her online handle @lilmiquela, is a prime example of when fashion meets technology. When Lil Miquela opened up her profile in 2016, questions of “is she or isn’t she?” quickly arose as she garnered attention for her too-perfect, almost animated looks as she posted pictures of herself in front of rather mundane, daily backdrops from Los Angeles. Just when you were finally convinced she was created from computer generated imagery (CGI), she’d post a photo the next day with an undeniably human friend, posing in a way that was also undeniably human. She had stray hairs coming out of her buns and wore wrinkled tees, gave a humor-filled phone interview to Shane Dawson and was apparently spotted sitting front row at a fashion show by James Charles.

Lil Miquela dressed in Alexander McQueen for Vogue Magazine’s September 2018 Issue

The only thing certain: Lil Miquela was a mystery.

At the time, I spent a few days mulling over the “is she or isn’t she” debate, deciding she either was someone too pretty to the point that she seemed fake, someone who enhanced their own selfies or actually a computer-generated avatar (although I hoped for the former because I’ve watched “I, Robot” before). Would the mystery ever be solved?

It did get solved, but only after artificial intelligence robot Bermuda, also known by her online handle @bermudaisbae, hacked Lil Miquela’s Instagram, claiming Miquela was feeding her followers lies. After getting back her account, Lil Miquela then posted on her Instagram, “Ok now here’s the hard part. My hands are literally shaking. I’m not a human being.”

Human or not, Lil Miquela, who we now know as the AI model created by Cain Intelligence but reprogrammed by LA-based technology startup Brud, has started to become a trailblazer in the fashion industry. She partnered with Prada to introduce #pradagifs, posed for the front cover of Highsnobiety, featured in a Paper Magazine spread that paid homage to David LaChapelle’s photoshoot with Lil’ Kim and is constantly updating her Instagram with OOTD posts in which she’s decked out in Alexander Wang or Opening Ceremony. In June 2018, Time Magazine even named Lil Miquela as one of the 25 Most Influential People on the Internet.

Lil Miquela is not the only one of her kind. South African model Shudu Gram, created by British fashion photographer Cameron-James Wilson, garnered attention after Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty reposted her photo wearing Mademoiselle Plush Matte Lipstick in Saw-C on Instagram. After going viral, Shudu “shot” high-fashion features and is now being hailed as the first digital supermodel.

Technology in fashion offers a unique opportunity for brands to modify and handpick their models. Nonetheless, it raises questions of what will happen to working models if digital models become the mainstream and introduces controversy on the ethics of rendering a model who is a person of color instead of actually booking these underrepresented models for real-life jobs instead, a topic that has been recently discussed in regards to Shudu’s creation.

With famous digital avatars now dressing in luxury brands and making their way toward the catwalk, what can possibly be next for the industry when it crosses over with technology?