Acne Studios

In 2019, Acne Studios (based in Stockholm, Sweden) invited Robbie Barrat to collaborate with their designers on a new Men’s Fall/Winter collection that applied ideas he had developed while working on the Balenciaga images.

Using a similar process, Barrat trained a neural network on images of Acne’s previous four collections in order to create new designs that could be transformed into physical objects.

To facilitate the transition from design sketch to finished garment, Barrat developed digital tools for the Acne designers that allowed them to click on an area of an outfit and alter it according to a variety of options. This type of interface is now common to much of GAN-based image production, bringing it into closer alignment with conventional image editing.

Finally, recognizing the important role of fabric in those GAN-based designs, Barrat also produced imagery which could be directly printed onto garments.

Robbie Barrat, Acne Studios x Robbie Barrat · Fall/Winter 2020 Collection, 2020, digital slideshow, Courtesy of Acne Studios