This week, Ben and Grace discuss:The launch of Meta's Muse image model, with opt-out likeness tagging - and the ongoing battle between human models are the companies they shoot for, who seem willing to misappropriate their likenesses: https://www.theverge.com/tech/962485/meta-muse-image-ai-model-instagram and https://wwd.com/sourcing-journal/industry-news/fashion-model-racial-discrimination-artificial-intelligence-1239051932/The more tangible social impacts of AI-supporting data centre build-outs in the UK and abroad: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/06/scotland-lanarkshire-village-ai-datacentreThe growth of wardrobe-quantifying / cataloguing apps: https://www.just-style.com/news/whering-seed-funding-ai/?cf-viewSome positive uses of AI in sorting and separating textiles and second-hand garments: https://tech.eu/2026/07/08/berlins-reversefashion-bags-seven-figure-funding-to-scale-textile-sorting/ and https://thenextweb.com/news/fleek-25m-series-b-secondhand-fashion-aiAnd the launch of ChatGPT Voice, based on the new GPT-Live model, and what it might mean for layering persuasion on top of a novel modality for interaction: https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-live/

Zalando has pushed further than perhaps any other company in embedding generative AI into its content creation - from product page materials to full-blown creative campaigns - and in talking openly about it. But if cost-saving isn’t the primary objective, what is?Ben talks to Glazione Rocha, Creative Director, to find out how a company at the bleeding edge of deploying AI for consumer-facing content approaches the work, and how they think about the impact of their choices.

For this week's edition of The Edit - the quickfire fashion technology analysis show from The Interline - Ben and Grace talk about...Fashion's place in Substack sponsorships:https://on.substack.com/p/a-business-model-that-works-for-creators Domestic manufacturing and tech startups against the backdrop of UK political devolution: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/29/what-is-andy-burnhams-economic-and-political-blueprint-for-britainThe surveillance state, and the spying potential of wearables: https://www.vogue.com/article/testing-mias-anti-surveillance-streetwearA potential new frontier in blended material recycling: https://wwd.com/sourcing-journal/sj-denim/hkrita-jeanologia-looptworks-scale-green-machine-recycling-1239032559/And incoming legislation and labels for AI content: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/24/adidas-uniqlo-calvin-klein-ads-banned-asa-uk-recycled and https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-icons-labelling-ai-generated-content

Outside of software itself, knitting is probably the closest thing fashion has to coding: a verifiable, binary discipline defined by scarce talent, and specialised software and hardware. Upending it might be the industry’s high bar for new technology - but one company is trying anyway.Ben talks to Garrett Gerson, CEO and Co-Founder of Variant3D.

In this week's quickfire analysis, Social Editor Grace Robinson quizzes Editor-In-Chief Ben Hanson on:The UK’s under-sixteen social media ban and the race to reach Gen Alpha.Meta’s Ray-Ban-free smart glasses and Snap’s premium AR specs.SSENSE replacing its creative teams with AI.REI’s two-handlebar AI ad and Meta’s auto-enrolled ad tool.And how a record-breaking European heatwave reminds us that fashion needs to react to a changing world.The Edit is also available on YouTube.

Upstream innovation, in materials, processing, and production, has had a chequered few years. Promising pilots routinely fail to take flight or achieve commercial scale. Ben talks to Stephen Bates, CEO of RHEON LABS, to assess what success on the journey from lab to big-label deployment might actually look like.

This week on The Edit: five fresh headline stories from across fashion and technology receive the quickfire analysis treatment.First: Anthropic releases and is then forced to retract its new Fable 5 model - https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-accessSecond: new data from Adobe suggests that AI interactions can increase retail conversions by 54%, and token budgets per employee appear less out-of-control than analysts suspected - https://business.adobe.com/blog/adobe-report-ai-traffic-travel-sites-surges-200-percent and https://ramp.com/data/ai-indexThird: Epic Games' demonstration of their creative teams' worfklows, which incorporate some AI, ignites debate. At the same time, the company set out its stall for seeing Unreal 6 as the opportunity to massively expand the utility and portability of skins - https://www.ign.com/articles/fortnite-maker-confirms-how-it-uses-generative-ai-to-help-create-concept-art-and-designs-for-new-skins and https://www.theverge.com/games/951785/epic-games-fortnite-unreal-fest-2026-unreal-engine-6-ai-metaverseFourth: secondary market giant StockX will be opening its first permanent retail store, as well as allowing for live shopping and direct interactions between sellers and buyers: https://fashionunited.uk/news/retail/stockx-reopens-soho-store-as-its-first-permanent-retail-location-in-the-us/2026061788698 and https://www.businessoffashion.com/briefings/sports/the-kicks-you-wear-why-stockx-is-launching-live-shopping/Fifth: Charlotte Tillbury makes a renewed case for the "beauty technology" label, and we consider the advantage that beauty has over fashion when it comes to locating innovation closer to the consumer - https://www.fastcompany.com/91556648/why-i-designed-charlotte-tilbury-beauty-as-a-technology-company

Fashion devotes a lot of time to securing its inputs, but the importance of water to the industry’s supply chain goes under-discussed, and water is not quantified and assessed the way carbon is. But as water justice becomes a more acute business continuity risk, the demand to reckon with fashion’s thirst is growing.Ben talks to Amira Jehia, Founding Executive Director of Drip By Drip, to understand why water impact quantification lags behind carbon footprint assessment, despite representing a more acute risk in the short term.

The first edition of The Edit, a new weekly show where Social Editor Grace interviews Editor-in-Chief Ben about five headline stories from across fashion and technology in less than 25 minutes.This week the team pick up and analyse:DRESSX and Depop tackle virtual try-on for the secondary market:https://retailtechinnovationhub.com/home/2026/6/7/dressx-teams-with-depop-on-series-of-ai-powered-resale-styling-and-virtual-try-on-activationsAsda and Amazon pursue different slants on warehouse automation: https://www.itv.com/news/2026-06-03/asda-set-to-axe-1000-jobs-as-supermarket-expands-use-of-robots-in-warehouseshttps://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/amazon-proteus-robot-europe-investment-employee-supportA potential bellwether case in generative AI:https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/webcivil/FCASCaseInfo?parm=CaseInfo&index=0ZNmRgvD2qR4l0WOTiUuuQ%3D%3D&county=4C0EZrpMlZxgt4jIwaHpvQ%3D%3D&motion=M&docs=&adate=07/07/2026&civilCaseId=hGKUc3wpVnhmBouCuV5R8w%3D%3DThe darker side of live shopping, and dark patterns in AI chatbot engagement:https://www.vogue.com/article/the-darker-side-of-live-shoppinghttps://cdt.org/insights/dark-patterns-in-ai-chatbots-a-taxonomy-to-inform-better-design/?ref=404media.coProduct-level personalisation through pairing AI with print-on-demand:https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/design-merch-with-ai-alexa-for-shoppinghttps://techcrunch.com/2026/06/03/amazon-will-show-ai-product-images-when-you-search-for-some-reason/

The case is strong for someone to own the secondary market, but whether that winds up being first or third-party ownership will depend as much on platforms and standards as it does on business models and incentives.This week, Ben talks to Muhammad "Mo" Kharodia, CTO of pre-loved childrenswear platform Designer Kids Club, to examine why a founder sees an opportunity to prove out the technology for the secondary market in a narrow tranche first.