Ethical implications of AI in the fashion industry for trend forecasting and garment design development

Abstract The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the fashion industry is transforming processes, including trend forecasting, garment design, and creative decision-making. Although AI technologies enhance efficiency, predictive accuracy, and responsiveness to consumer demand, their rapid adoption introduces significant ethical and socio-creative challenges that are insufficiently examined in current fashion studies. This study examines the ethical implications of AI in fashion, focusing on creativity, transparency, accountability, and algorithmic bias. This study utilised a mixed-methods research design, combining a cross-sectional survey of 93 fashion industry professionals with 15 semi-structured interviews involving experienced practitioners in design, merchandising, and business development. Quantitative results demonstrate that AI is widely adopted in fashion workflows and is perceived to improve operational efficiency and facilitate data-driven decision-making. In contrast, qualitative findings highlight tensions between technological optimisation and creative integrity, especially concerning originality, cultural representation, and reliance on historically biased datasets. The study identifies three primary ethical concerns related to AI adoption in fashion: algorithmic bias, lack of transparency, and ambiguous accountability structures. Participants indicated that AI systems frequently reinforce dominant aesthetics and marginalise non-Western and niche perspectives due to limitations in training data. Furthermore, the opacity of AI-generated outputs diminished trust among creative professionals and complicated the assignment of ethical responsibility in decision-making. While concerns about labour displacement were noted, most participants regarded AI as a complementary tool that transforms, rather than replaces, creative roles. This research provides empirical insights into the socio-ethical implications of AI adoption in the fashion industry and introduces a conceptual framework that positions AI as an augmentative system within persistent tensions among innovation, ethics, and human creativity. The findings underscore the need to develop transparent, inclusive, and context-sensitive AI governance frameworks to promote responsible innovation in fashion.