Real Imaginary Friends

Have you heard about digital personalities? Your teens and students already may know a new kind of avatar named Miquela Sousa. By 2020, trendwatching.com reports AI, facial recognition, emotional sensing, and other new technologies will create 5 billion virtual assistants and virtual companions or computer-generated influencers (CGI).

     Marketers are able to tailor a perfect CGI for every marketing segment's sex, age, size, and passions. That's what Trevor McFearies and Sara De Cou are doing at Brud, an LA-based tech startup. Vogue's September, 2018 issue describes Miquela Sousa, the 19-year-old model and musician Brud based on current tastes and culture cues. Stylist Lucinda Chambers outfits Lil Miquela, as she is known since 2016 by her Instagram followers, in Alexander McQueen for a Vogue photo shoot. Miquela's interests are said to be: recording music, the politics of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, relapsing into tomboy clothes and activities, makeup tutorials on YouTube, and new Drake albums. She has blunt-cut bangs, straight dark hair past her shoulders, rather thick eyebrows over her brown eyes, full pouty lips, a slim but not skinny body, a pretty face speckled with freckles lightly covered with foundation a tad darker than medium.  

    What does a marketer want a susceptible young person to do after interacting with Miquela Sousa? Imitate her look, fashions, activities, and causes. The latter, in her case, are liberal.

     It is easy to slip out of reality and get caught up imitating what a made-up CGI looks like, wears, does, and says. Too easy. 

So You Want a Career in Fashion. Do It!

Don't let all the talk about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics scare you into another field. Who knows, outfits for robots may be the next new thing? In any case, you only need to watch the "Project Runway" TV show to realize interest in fashion is as global as interest in the Internet of Things. Designers on "Project Runway" are male, female, and other; Japanese-American, African-American, and Muslim. In fact, the Muslim designer's long, modest fashion won the show's second competition. And this season, "Project Runway" also requires designers to create stylish clothes for women who take every size up to and including size 22.

     But "Project Runway" is not the only one breaking the traditional fashion mold. Fashion magazines, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle, have responded to competition from the international fashion reach of Facebook and Google. Where consumers and advertisers want products in local languages tailored to cultural dress codes, political policies, and local designers, models, and icons, there are separate editions, such as Vogue Arabia, Vogue Latin America, Vogue Poland, Vogue Czech Republic and Vogue Ukraine. Naomi Campbell, among others, supports the idea of launching Vogue Africa. When it is possible to create editorial content compatible with international interests and brands and using international celebrities, the same major campaign can run in as many as 25, 32, or 46 separate editions.

     Based on consumer interests and advertising trends, David Carey, president of Harper's Bazaar's Hearst publisher, expects local content to shrink somewhat as global content increases in future years.