French fashion house Balmain recently announced is Pre-Fall 2018 campaign, and they’ve enlisted three digital models to wear digitally-created versions of their collection.
Each season, Balmain recruits the most in-demand faces to join their ‘Balmain Army’. Previous recruits include Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Cindy Crawford. Now, Olivier Rousteing — Balmain’s creative director— has introduced the new, digital faces of Balmain. These new models make up the new ‘virtual army’.
Meet the models:
Shudu: Her Instagram bio reads “The World’s First Digital Supermodel”, Shudu has been making waves all year. She’s previously featured in campaigns for Fenty Beauty, Vogue Australia and now Balmain. The first of CGI mastermind Cameron-James Wilson’s Supermodel creations. Shudu has courted a fair amount of controversy since she first made her Instagram debut a year ago. Many people were vexed that Shudu was taking work away from actual POC models, which is an important dialogue to open considering the fashion industry diversity crisis.
Zhi: Zhi is a Chinese model influenced by David Bowie. In an interview with Refinery29 Rouesteing has stated that “She’s the one pushing the agenda that David Bowie did in the past.”
Margot: Margot has been described by Rouesting as “the French girl of his childhood dreams” and she is exactly that.
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So what does this all mean for the fashion industry? Will CGI models be the future? Probably not, but hey it’s fun to hyperbolize that we’re all living in some sort of post-apocalyptic Black Mirror fantasy.
