It seems that the world is in the throes of PS2 supremacy. Just this week, Replicate’s AI filter went viral across TikTok, Twitter and Instagram for transforming your favourite album covers into their very own PlayStation games (more on that here). Think of a pixelated Tomb Raider version of Charli XCX climbing on top of a car and you’ll get the idea. Now, it seems that no one can escape the long arm of the PS2 filter, which has now left the confines of music and infiltrated the fashion world.
After dropping its SS24 campaign just two days ago, Balenciaga is the latest to undergo the PS treatment, and it’s all thanks to photographer Donald Gjoka. The campaign – which put none other than Demna’s mum in a starring role – was faithfully recreated by Gjoka with Replicate’s AI tool, which uses Stable Diffusion as the main model of machine learning to generate the visuals.
“The project I did is an homage,” Gjoka said in a conversation over email. “This is not the first [Balenciaga collection] I’ve done – I already gave other digital twists to their previous collections.” Although Gjoka didn’t get express permission from the brand, he’s pretty confident that they’ll be pleased with his images. “I’m very familiar with some of the people working internally,” he added, “and I believe the revolutionary values of the brand are very much aligned with my creative direction. The brand gives me the freedom to experiment as much as I want, and their unconventional approach to fashion keeps on inspiring me.”
As Gjoka suggests, it makes sense that Balenciaga would be in line for the AI filter treatment. The brand’s recent AW24 show invited guests into a world overloaded with AI screens and frantic moving images in order to ask – amongst other things – what fashion means in a world saturated with content. And although the backdrops in this current SS24 campaign look as if models are standing in an ornate Parisian apartment, they’re actually in front of 2D painted screens that merely give the illusion of their surroundings. At Balenciaga, Demna often explores these ideas surrounding technology and corporeality, so we reckon he’d be a fan of the PS2 filter’s handiwork. After all, this is the man who created a videogame to present his Fall 2021 collection, one that Gjoka was undoubtedly inspired by when re-rendering the campaign today.
Click below to revisit Balenciaga’s 00s-inspired videogame Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow.