The Interline Podcast

When it comes to visually representing a product, and building alignment around that visualisation, brands and retailers are placing some serious bets on the capabilities of both general-purpose frontier models and fashion-specific tooling. But is AI “good enough” to change the overall go-to-market trajectory?

To evaluate both sides, Ben talks to Marco Marchesi, CTO of The Fabricant.

For this week's quickfire analysis of the fashion technology headlines, Grace and Ben tackle:

Klarna and Save Your Wardrobe's BNPL / repair partnership - https://fashionunited.uk/news/fashion/klarna-launches-care-repair-feature-in-uk-and-france-to-boost-apparel-lifespan/2026093090624

Adobe's analysis of the role AI is set to play in a potentially bumper holiday season - https://news.adobe.com/news/2026/09/adobe-us-holiday-shopping-season-to-hit-record

a16z's occasionally-useful second-edition State Of Markets - https://www.a16z.news/p/state-of-markets-ii

L'Oreal's ascendance to the top of the French public company value table - https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/loreal-steals-french-stock-market-crown-lvmh-2026-09-15/

A narrow pilot of AI virtual try-on in a UK supermarket, and whether it has bigger implications - https://www.tescoplc.com/tesco-trials-virtual-try-on-technology-as-part-of-new-ff-in-store-shopping-experience/

Our data shows that fashion’s use of AI is outpacing its willingness to trust it with important choices. But technology vendors see a clear progression from assisting to automating decision-making, paired with a move away from traditional interfaces.

How much is fashion really comfortable letting AI decide today, and how fast is that frontier likely to move?

To find out, Ben talks to Rupert Schiessl, Chief Strategy & AI Officer for Bamboo Rose - building on the interview he previously gave for our AI Report 2026.

In this week's analysis of the top fashion technology headlines, Grace and Ben run through:

Unitree robots on the Vogue World runway - https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/23/vogue-sent-robots-down-the-runway-at-vogue-world-and-people-were-not-impressed/

Gen Z using AI to 'showroom' in physical stores - https://ww.fashionnetwork.com/news/Ai-influences-62-of-gen-z-in-store-spending-wearables-increasingly-being-used-in-process-report,1868455.html

Big banks raising the flag on the risks of agentic commerce - https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/banks-warn-ai-shopping-bots-raise-scam-fraud-data-privacy-risks-2026-09-22/

The state of smart glasses in fashion, and in polite society - https://about.fb.com/news/2026/09/introducing-ray-ban-meta-audio-glasses-new-styles-plus-muse/

Amazon blocking Meta's Muse agent - https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/21/metas-ai-agent-has-been-blocked-from-using-amazon-com/

The complicated proposition of Meta's 'personal superintelligence,' for shoppers and retailers - https://www.ft.com/content/f4770cdf-626e-41e3-9db0-3dc0b64b8c00?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Social media and influencer marketing have made big marks on fashion - and vice versa - but strategies are changing as a result of both synthetic content and the tech-led evolution of creators into something more closely resembling traditional media.

Ben sits down with Bryony Barker, Global Strategy Director for Pulse Advertising, to discuss what’s next for brand marketing.

This week on The Edit, Grace and Ben acceptable the inevitable and have a whole show dedicated to talking about AI for fashion in different forms.

Google's push into fashion weeks: https://www.vogue.com/article/how-googles-ai-tools-factored-into-new-york-fashion-week

Daydream's integration with iOS on-device AI: https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/14/fashion-discovery-app-daydream-uses-apple-intelligence-to-help-you-shop-the-outfits-saved-in-your-camera-roll/

Generative workspaces launching tech pack features: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/raspberry-ai-transforms-fashion-brands-123300405.html?guccounter=1

Product development and AI: https://wwd.com/sourcing-journal/industry-news/lectra-agentic-artificial-intelligence-apogy-fashion-1239240732/

And whether AI is going to kill us all, or, more likely, put elements of the fashion value chain at risk: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-exactly-could-ai-kill-us

Deafmetal Founder Jenni Ahtiainen, who designs jewellery and safety accessories for hearing devices, shares a different vantage point on the relationship between wearable medical technology and self-expression, and talks to Ben about what overcoming the stigma attached to hearing loss could tell us about a much bigger emerging category.

Fintech platforms have become increasingly tied to brands' and retailers' pursuit of growth in customers, ABV, and GMV. But with new guardrails applied to buy-now-pay-later, and the cost of living rising, could card-linked instalments be different enough to change things?

To dissect fashion's relationship with deferred payment credit, Ben sits down with Alex Forsyth-Thompson, Founder & CEO of Float.

This week on The Edit, Ben and Grace are on a quickfire tour of:

The state of fashion & sports eCommerce, pulling from a new BoF report that Ben also contributed to: https://www.businessoffashion.com/reports/sports/bof-insights-amazon-fashion-sports-europe-e-commerce-report/

The first and second-hand use cases for "Shopper Passports": https://www.ecomid.com/blog/seed-round/

Anthropic's holiday-season retail blueprints, and the potential for the Model Hardware Standard to reach beyond the lab and onto the shopfloor: https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/anthropic-launches-ai-agent-blueprints-retailers-ahead-holiday-shopping-season-2026-09-02/ and https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-hardware-standard-research-preview

New EU strategies to try and remove the incentives for fast fashion: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2792pendro

And Gen Z's relationship with... gen AI and fashion in general: https://puck.news/gen-z-has-trust-issues-with-fashion/

The market perception is that generative AI is most mature at the beginning and end of the product journey, where products can exist as pictures, and least ready in the technical spaces in between.

AI creative platform FLORA, which raised more than $40 million at the start of this year, and which just launched Fashion Studio (its first verticalised toolkit) wants to try and do it all. But how far can generative tooling for fashion really go?

To find out, Ben talks to Weber Wong, FLORA's CEO.