Paolo Carzana and the Fight for Fashion’s Soul: Resisting AI, Digital Identity, and the Commodification of Creativity
- Andrew Groves
- Mar 2
- 3 min read
What happens when fashion stops being a human expression and becomes just another data point?
The relentless push towards digital identities is no longer just about individuals - it extends to objects, including fashion. Under the guise of sustainability and traceability, the industry is being reshaped by a system where garments are embedded with blockchain tags, AI-driven authentication, and digital certification. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), often presented as a climate solution, are a driving force behind this transformation, but the reality is far more dystopian. Instead of preserving craftsmanship or reducing waste, these initiatives are paving the way for a future where fashion is just another tool in the expanding web of surveillance, data control, and digital commodification.
Paolo Carzana, however, is having none of it.
Making as Resistance
As one of the most radical designers to emerge in recent years, Carzana’s work explicitly rejects this digital imposition. Trained at the University of Westminster, his practice is rooted in hand-making, slow processes, and the physical, communal act of creating. Every element of his work, from the natural dyes he extracts from plants to his rejection of digital mediation, asserts that fashion is, first and foremost, a human and material experience - not a digital asset.
In many ways, Carzana’s resistance echoes that of William Morris, the 19th-century designer and socialist who stood against the mechanisation of design during the Industrial Revolution. Morris saw industrialisation as a system that devalued human labour, stripping both objects and workers of their souls. He championed the return to handcraft, rejecting the uniformity and soullessness of mass production in favour of pieces that bore the mark of their maker. Today, Carzana’s rejection of AI-driven fashion and digital identity follows a similar path, his garments, dyed with natural pigments and painstakingly hand-crafted, stand in opposition to the cold efficiency of algorithmically generated clothing.
His Spring 2025 collection, presented in his own backyard, embodied this philosophy. The garments, made from organic and salvaged materials, were hand-dyed using vegetables, flowers, and spices, methods that cannot be replicated by AI or reduced to a trackable data stream. As fashion brands rush towards digital identity systems and AI-generated clothing, Carzana’s work insists that the future of fashion should not be dictated by algorithms or sustainability initiatives designed to control, rather than liberate, creativity.
Rejecting the Digital Commodification of Fashion
The imposition of digital identity on garments is often framed as progress, fashion tech companies tout blockchain authentication, digital product passports, and AI-driven supply chains as necessary innovations. The UN SDGs reinforce these practices, encouraging traceability and transparency. But what is really at stake?
This digital infrastructure does not exist to support artisanship or small-scale production; it is designed for mass production, data harvesting, and control. Fashion objects, like people, are being given digital identities not for their benefit, but for those who seek to monetise and regulate them. When every garment is linked to a digital passport, tracked from production to resale, ownership and access can be easily restricted. Carzana’s refusal to participate in this system is a political act, one that recognises the dangers of allowing physical objects to be absorbed into the logic of the digital economy.
His work is a rejection of the ideology that insists everything must be measured, tracked, and assigned a unique digital signature. Instead of clothing that exists to be authenticated by blockchain, Carzana’s garments exist to be worn, touched, and lived in, free from digital oversight.
The Real Future of Fashion: Who’s Brave Enough to Fight for It?
Paolo Carzana’s resistance is about more than nostalgia for craftsmanship. His approach poses a crucial question: What kind of future do we want for fashion? One where AI dictates aesthetics, garments are reduced to QR codes, and the act of making is secondary to the extraction of data? Or one where clothing remains a deeply human expression, resistant to the logic of digital commodification?
William Morris fought against the dehumanisation of design in his time; Paolo Carzana is doing the same today. Both remind us that fashion, at its best, is an act of human connection, one that cannot and should not be reduced to a digital ledger.
Can fashion survive as a human-centred practice, or are we witnessing the last generation of designers who prioritise making over data-driven optimisation?