Blue Cast: Soorty’s Eda Dikmen on Advancing Creativity with AI
Blue Cast is a podcast series from the TENCEL™ Denim team. Each episode features a conversation with a special guest from within the industry or the fringes of the denim community. The following is a recap of episode 407.
The five-pocket jean is a timeless classic for a reason. But sometimes it’s beneficial to shake up denim silhouettes.
Recently, denim mill Soorty used artificial intelligence as an antidote to the industry’s sameness. Dubbed HumAIn, the project uses AI as a tool rather than a replacement for the human touch in design.
“Along our journey of working with artificial intelligence, we have discovered that it’s not the AI nor the human power solo that goes the distance that we want to go,” Soorty Enterprises’ marketing and communications manager Eda Dikmen shared with Lenzing’s Tuncay Kilickan on the latest episode of our Blue Cast podcast. “It’s the two of them working together.”
For this initiative, Soorty tapped designer Volker Ketteniss of Ornmntncrm to design a collection with the help of AI. He fed the open-source AI Stable Diffusion keywords to iterate. One of the takeaways, according to Eda, was persistence. “The advantage is that the AI unleashes a torrent of innovative designs because it has these cutting-edge algorithms,” she noted. However, not all the results from the prompts were usable.
“We generally tend to go back to the authentic and traditional quite often. And here, I think what the AI did differently was…taking base from the originals, but also unleashing these innovative designs,” she explained. “We came out with mesmerizing patterns, really unconventional textures, very daring combinations. But also at the same time, so many times our trials did not work, so we patiently went back to the drawing board.”
A total 50 digital designs were created, and then two of these looks were chosen to be turned into physical garments. Rather than starting with the fabric, this project began with a visual. To achieve the drapey looks needed for the garment concepts, Soorty fashioned them out of its cotton-TENCEL™ blended Ivy fabric.
This time around, the focus was generating new silhouette ideas with AI. Soorty is now experimenting in using it for washes, and Eda sees potential in the future to use it for areas such as fabric development.
HumAIn will be featured at Soorty’s upcoming open house event in New York, open to its customers, academia and press. A workshop for the industry will delve into the power of AI mixed with human creativity.
This is the latest in a long line of Soorty innovations as the mill seeks to create newness through technology. “As Soorty, we will be always excited and curious about this digitalization and being a pioneer and experimenting with new ideas,” she said. “We want to be in the exploration zone.”
Listen to the episode here.