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Baggu used AI for its viral pony purse. The internet is mad. 

Much-hyped collab between two sustainability-focused designers has sparked backlash over its use of energy-hungry AI image generator

3:52 PM PDT on June 25, 2024

For a certain subsection of terminally online Gen Zers and millennial cool consumers, San Francisco bagmaker Baggu’s bags are the It Bag. Their colorful totes, sold at museums and boutiques across the city, are practical, versatile, and supposedly sustainable. They’re also inescapable, omnipresent at farmers’ markets and grocery stores.

Despite its stated promise “to minimize and control” its environmental impacts, Baggu’s most recent bag drop, a collab with sustainable New York fashion brand Collina Strada, used two prints generated by AI platform Midjourney. Criticism swiftly spread on social media last week, with many users pointing out that generative AI — and specifically AI image generators — use colossal, unsustainable amounts of energy and water.

Baggu has gained notoriety for its collabs, including one with indie rock supergroup Boygenius. Its line with Lower East Side-chic brand Sandy Liang reportedly sold out in seven minutes. On the surface, its partnership with Collina Strada makes sense; the designer markets itself as a “PLATFORM FOR CLIMATE AWARENESS, SOCIAL AWARENESS, CHANGE AND SELF EXPRESSION” (caps theirs).

But Collina Strada has also been open about its use of AI to create both patterns and, according to Business of Fashion, to help generate ideas for its spring-summer 2024 collection. Two of those prints made it into the recent designs for Baggu, available on both the classic sac-like bags and more influencer-coveted designs, like a horse-shaped purse. 

Collina Strada spokesperson Lindsey Solomon told Gazetteer that Midjourney was deployed to mix “two old Collina Strada prints together to get unique results.” The spokesperson also assured that the technology “was just used as an experiment for this season and translated by the designers.” 

@oldloserinbrooklyn

Whats in my horse baggu x collina strada featuring Little Edie. #bagguxcollinastrada #baggu #whatsinmybag

♬ original sound - Mandy Lee

A spokesperson for Baggu did not respond to multiple requests for comment, although on Monday they posted to social media acknowledging the use of AI in the collection, without addressing any of the controversy. The products that use AI-generated prints also had a disclaimer on each page that the brand “used Midjourney to remix old Collina prints and drive them further” when the line launched Tuesday. 

Whatever hype was generated by the many tastemakers showing off previews of items like that horse-shaped purse (which, it must be said, is pretty rad), has quickly been replaced by growing ethical and environmental criticism of the brand’s use of AI. 

The environmental impact of generative AI is staggering. A recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and open-source AI firm Hugging Face found that generating 1,000 images on a service like Midjourney uses as much energy as a single phone charge. That may sound small, but it adds up quickly, given that users generate an estimated 34 million images every day. 

The timing for this launch is also terrible, coming just days after both Bloomberg and Jacobin released bombshell stories detailing generative AI’s immense energy demands, and the devastating effects it could have on global energy grids.

On the private Facebook group for Baggu enthusiasts, a rumor began to circulate last week that Collina Strada had used AI-generated prints for the drop. Sleuths put the prints through an AI content detector, which indicated that some of the Collina Strada prints were AI-generated. For the community of Baggu lovers, the news was blindsiding.

“I think their marketing is genius, it’s very diverse and clever and caters to a huge range of people, and I also really like how they’re a locally founded company,” said Ella, a 23-year-old musician living in San Francisco and a Baggu fan. “They have a big reputation for being eco-friendly and sustainable since a lot of recycled materials are used, so I genuinely feel good about supporting them.”

Other posters, both on the Facebook group and the Baggu subreddit, pointed to the specter of potential art and media layoffs which could be caused by generative AI. 

“seeing AI being used where they could have collabed with countless other artists out there is a bit of a slap in the face,” one Reddit poster wrote. “There will be other bags. There will be other cute collabs. There will be designers that don’t use AI in their art,” another added. 

The news seeped out to Instagram and TikTok this weekend, prompting an Instagram Story retort by Collina Strada art director Charlie Engman — himself a noted AI booster. “Endlessly fascinated by the punitive urge to foment public judgment over an artistic process in the name of protecting artists,” Engman wrote atop a screenshot of Instagram comments critiquing Collina Strada’s AI use. (Engman did not respond to a request for comment from Gazetteer SF.)

“Seeing this stuff with AI though is really disappointing,” Ella, the SF musician, told Gazetteer SF

Ella said she doesn’t plan on purchasing anything from this drop, thanks to the scandal. And it seems like others are following suit: As of this story’s publication, none of the items in the Collina Strada-Baggu collaboration have sold out.

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