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LVMH has awarded its 2024 Innovation Award to Chinese startup FancyTech, a platform that uses generative artificial intelligence to produce videos from 3D product models and creative briefs.
Luxury brands have taken quickly to generative AI because of its promise to decrease the time it takes to create images, videos and text. “This prize once again honours a startup that puts technological developments at the service of excellence,” said Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, in a statement.
FancyTech already works with a number of LVMH brands including Hublot, Givenchy and Bulgari, alongside others such as Chopard, on producing assets for footwear and jewellery categories among others, which are used in e-commerce and marketing to “increase conversion and drive attention”, says FancyTech co-founder Morgan Mao.
LVMH Group’s focus on immersive experiences is a driver for investing in 3D asset production, says LVMH information and technology director Franck Le Moal. “That’s why more and more of our maisons are investing in this domain,” he explains, citing brands like Louis Vuitton, Loro Piana, Bulgari and Thelios.
FancyTech develops and trains its own diffusion models, meaning algorithms that can ingest vast amounts of data and then create new content based on that data. The technology is primarily designed to be used on 3D products, rather than human figures.
Hublot worked with FancyTech when it launched on e-commerce platform Tmall in China. “The headache is that they needed to produce 80 videos for their 80 SKUs in a very short period,” Mao says. “It would be almost impossible using the traditional way for the production.” Hublot provided FancyTech with a script to describe the kind of videos they wanted to achieve. Its language model understood the script and wrote the prompt using the Python coding language, and then could replicate the script into different SKUs to make the videos. The process took two weeks, and Hublot’s Tmall flagship store now includes multiple videos created using FancyTech.
FancyTech, which also won in the Immersive Digital Experiences category, is based in Shanghai and employs 200 people, with offices in Singapore and New York. The startup will be onboarded at La Maison des Startups LVMH, the luxury group’s business acceleration programme within Paris incubator Station F, for a year beginning in September. “This will be a very good start to be looking for even more collaborations with different brands,” Mao says.
LVMH awarded a separate prize for the most compelling use of data, AI and generative AI to Blng, an LA-based generative AI and virtual studio specialising in jewellery. Unlike FancyTech, Blng uses the technology to convert physical sketches into visualisations. A recent proof of concept for Tiffany features a digitally generated hand, in which all aspects can be altered — from skin colour to nail shape.
“Before [we had artificial intelligence], creatives had to wait days to be able to preview their ideas,” says Blng CEO Valerie Leblond, who drew on her movie background in digital effects. “Now they can do it in seconds, which leaves them more time to design, experiment and collaborate with others.”
The LVMH Innovation Prize, now in its eighth edition, recognises the technology companies shaping the future of the luxury and fashion industries. Last year’s winner was repair platform Save Your Wardrobe (SYW), a London-based startup that connects store representatives with tailors, cobblers and restorers to fix clothing, shoes, jewellery and bags.
Some 1,545 startups applied for this year’s award, up from 1,300 last year; they represented 89 countries, and more than 40 per cent were founded by women. These were narrowed down to 18 finalists competing across six categories, all of which are invited to join La Maison des Startups and potentially collaborate with LVMH houses.
In the other categories this year, winning startups include: Glanceable (Omnichannel and Retail), Heralbony (Employee Experience and D&I), Ircam Amplify (Image and Media for Brand Desirability), Authena (Operations Excellence) and Aectual (Sustainability and Greentech).
Dior’s visual merchandising team designed one-of-a-kind trophies for this year’s prize, using an internal generative AI tool called ‘Inspaire’. They were then physically constructed using Murano glass-blowing techniques. Louis Vuitton also made a custom trunk for the winner’s trophy.
A group of ‘grown-up’ startups
The finalists were invited to display within the LVMH pavilion at Vivatech, an annual Paris-based technology conference that is heavily attended by fashion and beauty brands, and of which LVMH is a founding partner. The pavilion serves as a showcase for the group’s own innovations across brand desirability and luxury customer experience. In addition to artificial intelligence, spatial computing was another key focus of the day.
Arnault toured LVMH’s conference booth, with his eldest son Antoine Arnault, who is LVMH’s head of image, communication and environment as well as CEO and vice chairman of Christian Dior SE. They attracted a large crowd that seemed even more frenzied than past years, checking out innovations by the group’s houses including Dior, Tiffany and Sephora.
Initiatives on show included an Apple Vision Pro experience for luggage brand Rimowa, while Guerlain presented an immersive experience incorporating fragrance diffusion via virtual reality headsets. Landscapes were generated by voice prompts from house perfumer Delphine Jelk. Louis Vuitton unveiled a generative AI natural language model designed to aid its top-tier client advisers.
Dior Parfums presented Dior Astra, a tool harnessing AI and generative AI to analyse customer data and predict outcomes to address real-time issues and optimise product development. Also on show was an experimental project by Christian Dior, whereby images for an upcoming loyalty programme were generated and edited in generative AI tool ‘Midjourney’ and ‘Magnific AI’, with prompts provided by the human design team.
In his presentation speech, Arnault likened LVMH to 75 “grown-up” startups. “The mentality of a startup and reason for its success are very close to our own values,” he said, citing a combination of creativity and execution with “the spirit of an athlete”— a reference to the upcoming Paris Olympics, of which LVMH is a sponsor. “We have seen so many startups with fantastic ideas going nowhere because execution is key,” he added. “In the ’90s, there were lots of companies doing almost the same thing as Facebook, but only one is still there.”
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