Dress Coded : When AI Meets Fashion, Who Wears the Pants?

Sammanfattning

As generative artificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance, its growing role in fashion challenges traditional views of design and creativity, offering new opportunities for efficiency and innovation while also raising questions about consumer acceptance, purchase intention, and willingness to pay for AI-designed fashion, particularly in relation to humanness and perceived creativity. This study investigates how humanness influences consumer responses, namely product acceptance, purchase intention and willingness to pay, in relation to fashion items created by human vs. AI designers. It also examines whether perceived creativity mediates this relationship and whether fashion context, defined as luxury or non-luxury, serves as a moderator. A quantitative research approach was employed using a 3×2 between-subjects experimental vignette design, with data collected through twelve online surveys in which respondents evaluated fashion products designed by either an AI, a professional, or a consumer designer in luxury or non-luxury settings. The survey measured perceptions of humanness, creativity, and consumer responses, and the data were analyzed using Hayes’ PROCESS models to test mediation and moderation effects. Results showed that designer humanness (AI vs. human) did not significantly affect consumer responses or perceived creativity; however, perceived creativity independently predicted consumer responses. Exploratory analysis revealed that consumers' subjective perception of the designer's humanness, based on traits like intentionality, emotionality and authenticity, had a significant strong influence on perceived creativity and consumer responses. This suggests that it is not the designer's actual identity that has an effect but rather how “human” the designer feels, that drives consumer responses.