Is The Future Of Fashion Digital? Meet Anifa Mvemba The Designer Creating Digital Photoshoots [@AnifaM]

 29-year-old fashion designer and creative director of Hanifa, a contemporary Ready-to-Wear apparel line for women without limits. The brand focuses on catering to the beautifully unique array of shapes and curves found on a woman’s body. The collections embody the classy yet bold and brave woman who is not afraid to stand out, breaking and creating her own rules through fashion and through innovation. As an innovator herself, Anifa Mvuemba is part of the new movement within the fashion industry, looking to artificial intelligence and digitalisation to keep their businesses going during lockdown and perhaps post lockdown. Anifa uses online software to create new concepts for shoots using digitalised models, garments and backgrounds.

Now that designers are unable to arrange shoots, people within the industry are either shutting down, pausing until all of this is over, however, there are a few brands and designers stepping outside the box, innovating and finding ways to carry on with business as usual. We’ve seen facetime photography emerging with photographers instructing models on how to pose, where to stand for good lighting and capturing images over facetime, we’ve also had  Zara take on home photoshoots, with models styling and creative directing themselves but Anifa Mvemba has taken working from home and self-shooting to a whole new level. The realistic images capture perfectly the exact fitting and appearance of the clothing as it would look on a live model in a photography studio. 

As a black-owned brand Anifa Mvuemba highlights the importance of diversity in the fashion industry, this doesn’t stop at live models but she even created plus size models to fit her garments onto. Collections range from size 0 to 20.

The Maryland based designer tweets : “ So I’ve been learning a new thing while quarantining.. to sustain my business during this crisis. I’ve been learning how to create new concepts by digitalizing my models and garments, Could this be the future of fashion? Let’s talk.” 

Following on from last weeks Vogue global conversations which included discussions on various topics sparked by the Coronavirus, a lot of the conversations discussed what life will look like post-COVID-19 as well as what is the future for fashion, many of us are questioning the security of our jobs as well as questioning the direction the fashion industry is headed, this is the perfect time for designers to start up these crucial conversations. 

Anifa’s tweet has received 27.7k likes and 5.5k retweets so far as well as plenty of people applauding her for her creativity as well joining in on the conversation. The conversation began an insightful look into peoples varying opinions, with people bringing in the positives but also individuals bringing some of the possible negative consequences or aspects of creating digital models. Here are a few interesting comments people tweeted. 

“Ive been enjoying this aesthetically but I’m also curious about how this could change sizing challenges via online shopping. I think there’s a lot of potential here!”

“We can not always get rid of people when it comes to fashion it takes the real human aspect away. It just had a different appeal. The CGI always looks cool and is a good alternative but will not replace human models.”

“The only thing i’d be worried about, as a consumer, would be not seeing the real clothes (& the way a piece fits & falls) on actual humans. for accessories though, this would be elite!”

“I don’t feel comfortable with digitalized black models when real-life ones get near-zero opportunities.”

“This is the future! But I honestly think as a consumer of fashion, seeing actual models with real bodies in clothes has a far more positive impact on my shopping experience. As opposed to a digital model.”

“This could absolutely be the future of fashion from virtual fashion shows to showrooms and styling wardrobe – fashion and technology meets again!”

There is so much more of this conversation to be had and we hope to see more from Anifa Mvuemba. Check out the twitter thread to follow the conversation and to purchase the items featured head over to Hanifa.co.