To Collina Strada’s Hillary Taymour, AI is just a tool

While many people fear AI, Hillary Taymour is able to see the untapped potential it can have on design. At Dazed Archive Live at 99 Scott Avenue, Taymour hosted a hands-on workshop that taught participants how to use AI as a creative tool. As Collina Strada’s creative director, she has previously worked with the AI programme Midjourney to help design the brand’s SS24 collection.

At the “Merge Real Art Into AI” workshop, participants began by painting on a canvas. While they worked diligently, Taymour stood at the head of the room, requesting questions about AI and setting up the Midjourney Discord bot on the monitor. As she began to catalogue the completed paintings, one participant asked what art couldn’t exist without AI. To that, Taymour quickly replied, “None.” Although the internet has already decided that Taymour is “extremely pro-AI”, she realises that the implications of AI aren’t as black and white as they may seem. “It’s a tool; it’s not meant to change your life,” she said.

When it comes to fashion design, Taymour warned attendees that AI works for generating prints and pattern ideas, but it shouldn’t undermine the design process in general. While some credit Taymour with being the first one to bring AI to the runway, she says now AI-generated designs are more common than ever. “You see that on the runways now, these really crazy designs from these big [fashion] houses – and it’ll just come out of left field,” she said. “You can just tell that it was made in AI and that no one knew what they were doing.” Like most design techniques, working with AI takes some practice. Taymour acknowledges that AI isn’t perfect, and she actually prefers the messier effect that the earlier versions of Midjourney were synonymous with. To her, the less realistic, the better.

After the paintings were finished, Taymour took photos of them in pairs. She emailed the photos to herself before she dropped them into the Midjourney Discord bot, where they were meshed together with AI. The paintings varied from long-stemmed flowers to sunsets and abstract geometric interpretations. She attempted to pair up the most dissimilar paintings, citing that when a pair is too alike, it leads to a boring mashup. Midjourney then generated four different variations of the blended paintings, from which Taymour asked the artists to pick their favourite.

As the workshop came to an end, the questions about AI seemed never-ending. Participants were especially curious to know Taymour’s personal stance, but she maintained that it was the use of AI in general that interested her. “I don’t know if it’s good or bad; to each their own,” she said. “It’s quite interesting to see it in real life and be able to spot it.”