Fashion can now be replicated perfectly. Silhouettes predicted. Trends modelled. Aesthetics generated at speed.
Yet the moments that define fashion were never predictable. They came from designers who chose restraint over spectacle, discomfort over approval, instinct over data.
That difference is taste.
Phoebe Philo’s Céline trusted proportion, space, and the intelligence of the wearer. Its influence is so seamless now it almost disappears — which is exactly the point.
An algorithm can recreate the shapes. It cannot replicate the decision to stop.
Rei Kawakubo has spent decades refusing harmony. Comme des Garçons distorts bodies, beauty, and expectation, not to provoke, but to ask better questions.
AI seeks resolution. Taste insists on tension.
Matthieu Blazy commands attention. Clean lines, muted palettes, and quiet authority define his work at Bottega Veneta. AI can analyse the silhouettes. It will never understand why less is always more.
Miuccia Prada proves taste does not need to be agreeable. Awkwardness, contradiction, intellectual discomfort, she consistently reshapes what fashion considers desirable.
Taste is not consensus. It is foresight.
As fashion grows louder and faster, restraint has become authority. Brands that do less, say less, show less, command the most attention.
When everything can be generated, luxury is no longer about access. It is about judgement.
Taste is not about knowing what comes next. It is about recognising what matters.
And for now, that remains beyond replication.
COUTURE TROOPERS MAGAZINE 