Can AI be designed to enable a more ‘human’ creative collaborative process within fashion design

This paper explores how the early adoption of AI in the fashion industry can evolve through more collaborative, human-centered frameworks grounded in neuroscience. It investigates how integrating neuroscience with AI can redefine ideation, consumer engagement, and cultural value in fashion, offering new pathways for emotional resonance and psychological depth in creative processes. Moving beyond dominant narratives—where data scientists focus on categorization and efficiency, and fashion scholars critique materiality and sustainability—this work proposes a novel interdisciplinary lens emphasising co-creation and embodied interaction. It examines how fashion’s historical role as a cultural interface is being reshaped by socio-technical systems, as consumers increasingly perform identity through digitally mediated environments. The paper questions past assumptions that fashion could not be codified, showing how AI is influencing design through algorithmically reinforced archetypes. The paper situates these developments within the emerging “Idea Economy,” where the value of creativity lies in collaborative processes between humans and intelligent systems. This perspective presents AI not just as an assistive tool, but as a co-creative agent capable of enhancing the emotional, cultural, and cognitive dimensions of fashion design and consumption. In doing so, it offers an expanded vision for fashion’s future—one that embraces AI as a partner in building sustainable, inclusive, and psychologically enriching experiences.