Fake jeans from Acne Studios in an undated image. Sales are thriving in the uncanny valley of printed denim. UNITED STATES – Swedish fashion house Acne Studios makes US$800 (S$1,060) jeans that look like something a roofer would wear to a rave.
They are coated in paint flecks, battered as a baseball mitt and burdened with enough metal trinkets that they should weigh almost 10kg. Except they do not. They are not covered in paint either.
And those wear marks? They are all a facade. Each splatter, splice and wear stain on the jeans is printed. The chains and charms are a one-dimensional illusion.
In the age of artificial intelligence fakery, designers are getting in on the fake news and making jeans that are not quite real. A long flirtation with trompe l’oeil Fashion history is a speckled battlefield of “trompe l’oeil” (French for “trick the eye”) technique to make consumers marvel and gasp. As far back as 1927, French couturier Elsa Schiaparelli was minting cheeky sweaters with flat, sham bows knit in them.
The 1990s witnessed a wave of postmodern, illusionist garments – British designer Katharine Hamnett’s jumpsuit that duped for a zoot suit, Jean Paul Gaultier’s dresses printed with images of women in bikinis and Martin Margiela’s whole collection of matt “sweaters” and “coats” printed, deviously, with photos of other garments. These designs were often conspicuous in their fakery – inviting onlookers to be in on the gag. Take Gaultier’s trom.