Shereen Wu says leading designer uploaded altered picture, amid fears AI could ‘turn back the clock’ on progress in the industry
From the title by itself, I was expecting a simple change to skin tone, which would have been bad enough. Reading the story and looking at the pic made me realize that things are much, much worse. What the FUCK.
You know what is the worst thing about this for me.
According to his post, he did not produce the show and did not know that Wu was not compensated for her time until he saw her TikTok.
Not only did they cheat her out of being the model, and replacing her with a terrible AI photo. They also didnt pay her for doing the actual show, until this blew up and the designer saw the tiktok.
He also initially threatened legal action against her, for unclear reasons. Like, he’s shared some racist Photoshop, gets called out for it, and his first response is to… Threaten to sue the model who simply made public comments about it?
Guy is a real piece of shit. He can walk back on stuff all he wants, but the first thing he did speaks volumes about what kinda person he is.
This isn’t saying she got paid after the TikTok – it’s saying the guy didn’t know she wasn’t paid, until he saw the TikTok. AFAIK she hasn’t been paid at all.
According to his post, he did not produce the show and did not know that Wu was not compensated for her time until he saw her TikTok. “After finding out through her videos that she wasn’t paid, I offered Shereen compensation for her time and talents,” Costello wrote.
It sounds like he at least offered to pay her, despite not being the one that was running the show and paying her.
To be fair, Wu also states in the article that she wasn’t expecting to be paid in anything but “exposure.” But that i think is what makes this particularly egregious - she wasn’t even getting paid in that fake currency for the naive. Although the article says that many of the models are under a similar arrangement for the fashion week this occurred during, so maybe exposure still counts for something in the fashion and modeling industries.
I hate how much the AI term gets thrown around. This just looks like regular Photoshop.
I agree. The article even says they don’t know how the picture was edited or who edited it. It may not have anything to do with AI at all.
While the origin of the altered runway photo is unknown, Wu believes someone – she doesn’t know who – used AI to create the white face that covered hers, a theory Costello echoed in his Instagram post.
Anything automated is AI today.
Regular photoshop has a bunch of AI tools as standard these days.
Yeah, this selfie probably wasn’t AI’d at all when you really get down to it.
That altered pic definitely looks unnatural. Even by fashion model standards.
Wow that is incredibly disrespectful.
The whole job is kinda dehumanising
“We need a clothes rack that can step hard enough to jiggle.” Basically.
I knew someone who was a photographer in it and drunk one night she confessed how so many of those photos are fake. Just props and settings. The real model headshot just got moved around.
If I hadn’t read the headline, and just looked at the pictures, my first reaction wouldn’t that they changed they changed her race, but that they faked a ton of makeup, added highlights, and “enhanced” the outfit’s shoulders.
The AI wanted Romulan shoulder pad technology.
She should be objecting to all the edits, not just the eye shape and overly filtered skin tones. Why did they need to edit her nose, or make that one giant dumbo ear? how could anyone think this mess is an improvent on the model’s great looks?
I was expecting something like what they did to Mindy Kaling where they lightened her skin (way too much) but they didn’t make her look white, they straight up replaced her head.
“Beauty” filters are basically just “White” filters for anyone who isn’t Caucasian.
Also much broader shoulders
The high fashion industry has always been a corrupt garbage fire.
Go right now to some normal store’s website and check out the clothing section. You are going to see normal looking people smiling. Why shouldn’t they be smiling? They have a nice sweater on.
High fashion it is all about taking these very unusual looking people, having them drain their face of touch of humanity, selling clothing that fits no one and costs thousands of dollars. And it is all performative. A game the super rich and their lackies are playing against other super rich and their lackies. If you had two investments available to you today the first is some “tech” company with an idea for a social media site and the other is a fashion maker the tech company (with it’s 5% chance of success) has a higher chance of success.
Lay down with dogs, get up with flies. This whitewashing is disgusting but not shocking especially given the decades of photo editing these shitstains have done.
Yes, I have no sympathy for the people who subject themselves to this abuse.
I’d be pissed too. They didn’t just change her skin tone, they completely took her out of the photo. For models who are sometimes paid in exposure, this is like yanking that pay away from her. Whatever photoshop is done, she needs to at least look like it’s her for her to be able to get the benefits from doing the work.
But even models who are paid money, there should be laws against making them look like someone completely different, in terms of the brand that they work for.
And that designer is a pos for sharing that photo, even if a fan did send it to him as “fan art”. Beyond the face change being in bad taste, he’s a professional, so he should be promoting the actual model who walked for him.
I expected to be paid in exposure
Oh dear…
He also said he was receiving death threats and that the show was a tribute to his aunt, who recently passed away.
Was his aunt a racist and that’s why he made an Asian model white?
Read the article, it wasn’t the designer who made the change. Even the model said so
I read the article and that is not what she said:
While the origin of the altered runway photo is unknown, Wu believes someone – she doesn’t know who – used AI to create the white face that covered hers, a theory Costello echoed in his Instagram post.
If you think the designer had no input into the photos from their own show, either you’re nuts or they don’t care very much about their designs.
Costello denied altering the photo and said the image was “fan art” sent to him by an unspecified source, but he “took responsibility” for sharing it
More context
Take my word for it, folks! It wasn’t me, it was someone who wanted to show me love!
she’s not white on the picture left ?
Not enough, apparently.
If you think that’s dehumanizing, imagine being born looking like that!
Explain.
I am hoping it’s sarcasm that mocks the people who are changing the faces for all the wrong reasons.
Imagine being born looking white. It happened to me once.
I still don’t get it.
Are you saying that it’s not dehumanizing for her image to be altered to look white because “being white” is better? Worse?
It’s facetious humor. If you think being turned into a white person sucks, imagine being born one.
Oh hehe. Understood now!
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“I just want to do what I love so I must automatically tolerate the toxicity and abuse of the industry without complaining.”
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I see you’re suggesting that she shouldn’t be surprised that the fucked up culture in the fashion industry is fucked up since everyone knows it’s fucked up. But what everyone else is trying to tell you is that we should still talk about how fucked up this is, because it’s fucked up.
I think the point they’re trying to make is there are much worse things happening at a broader scale in the fashion industry than this one model being impacted by this event.
And we can also be angry about those. Not every news story has to be about the most important thing ever.
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What did you want her to do, just not join the industry?
That just seems like systematic racism to me.
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It’s her fucking fault for getting into it in the first place.
This is textbook victim blaming. What isn’t textbook is how mad you are about this. You are so mad about this, and it’s unsettling.
Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised, but if she doesn’t call it out as BS that should stop who does?
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Should actresses not be surprised when producers try to rape them since that’s been happening since the beginnings of the film industry?
And why the fuck should she not be surprised? Removing blemishes is one thing. Changing their skin tone is quite another.
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Oh, okay, maybe she should just shut up and take it then?
Nothing gets done if people don’t talk about this stuff. The only power the masses have here is to turn this into a bad look for the companies involved.
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Oh, I see, so because it isn’t new, we should just give up, go home and just accept racism as the norm?
MLK would be so proud.
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Because white girls are prettier. And she should know that.
Jesus you are disgusting.
If my baby cousin gets hit trying to cross a busy street where many deaths have already occurred, I will still cry, even if the collision was entirely predictable. He didn’t deserve it. Knowing danger and accepting the risk does not mean you deserve the dire consequences when they occur.
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WHY ARE YOU ASSESSING BLAME TO A BABY?
You have trouble reading, don’t you?
This woman is culpable for all of the young girls going forward who join this industry and are subject to the same treatment.
Is that in the same way you are culpable for all the other knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers who will follow in your steps?
Lmao
I consider this comment to be loud and boisterous, but completely tone deaf.
White supremacy is not the side you want to be on.
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That superficial, artificial clique would be an entire industry as far as I can see you saying
That’s not something that should be argued as “just a clique, why did you show up?”. That’d be like saying the Activision/Blizzard scandal in the gaming industry was people who just should’ve accepted the shitty situation they were in. People should be able to say that an industry they want to be in is acting inappropriately.
Everyone needs to sell their body and time to an employer for wages and healthcare. You shouldn’t attack workers for speaking out.
And you still have no qualms about the industry treating white as the obviously superior modification they would make to her appearance.
You just defend that industry by calling HER the moron.
If you quack like a white supremacist, you are a white supremacists.
Happy you don’t like being called what you are though.
Leaves room for you to correct that.
PS: by correct that, I mean having harsh words for the producers, not the beautiful young lady who the producers whitified.
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Concern trolling, as are all accusations of “diluting a term” are. If girls at risk of being edited stayed out of the fashion industry - which was your advice - then the fashion industry would be left with only white women. But you knew that, didn’t you?
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You all think it will stop at white women. It won’t. Next they’ll photoshop hair color. Then eye color. Then cheek depth. Then whatever fucking else they can find.
Lmao, it’s so fucking bizarre that you think you’re the only one who realises this.
You all want to make it about race, but the problem is deeper.
Wow, galaxy brain, how did you figure this out before the rest of us? Yeah it’s fundamentally fucked. But you’re absolutely deluded if you think this incident had nothing to do with race.
