Dr. Irina Raicu.

Creative practice · Fashion

Couture, computed.

Collections, campaign worlds and films designed as complete systems, not isolated images.

01 / Fashion

  • Winner

    Tommy Hilfiger AI Fashion Prize2023
  • Winner

    Ecoolska AI Fashion Design2023
  • Finalist

    yoona.ai AI Design AwardBerlin · 2026
  • Prototype

    Cannes Lions interactive fashion2024

Featured collection

Celluloid Memories

Collections, not images.

Frame 001 / 005 Celluloid Memories

Frame 001

Concept

Cinema has always been fashion’s mirror, a dark room where light passes through fragile strips of chemistry to project dreams larger than life.

This collection began in abandoned cinemas, spaces where velvet seats hold the impressions of generations. I fed these atmospheres to the system: the geometry of film perforations, the spiral mathematics of a reel unwinding, the material tension between shearling warmth and leather permanence.

Memories Collection asks: can AI understand nostalgia? Can generative systems honor craft while reimagining it?

Frame 002

Visual grammar

Concept sketches established the collection’s architectural grammar: spiral geometries, perforation patterns, projection mechanics. Silhouette directions were rooted in cinema material culture rather than in period reference.

  • 40+ · Concept sketches produced
  • Film reel geometry, perforation, projection · Silhouette language

Frame 003

Construction studies

Selected concepts moved into full visual exploration. Typography-integrated designs carried clapperboard details and film frame numbering. Material studies set shearling against leather. Volumetric iteration developed the spiral coat.

  • 60+ · Spiral coat variations tested
  • 15–20 lighting, styling and camera angles · Renders per look

Frame 004

Curation

Shortlisted designs were rendered on-model in editorial environments, then reviewed against construction feasibility, emotional resonance, collection narrative coherence and silhouette diversity.

The final six were chosen not for spectacle, but for truth.

  • 247 · Total generations reviewed
  • 6 · Looks that survived curation

AI is not automation. It is collaboration with a system that has no ego, no habits, no fear of the impossible.

Frame 005

Six final looks

The collection resolves in an abandoned auditorium: projection light, dust, velvet, and garments built from the machinery of film itself.

How the work is made

Three rules I keep.

I was raised in my mother’s fashion atelier, where I learned that a collection is a set of decisions before it is a set of pictures. These rules survived.

Rule 1

One material, one series

Denim is the constant. Working inside a single material forces the design work into cut, weight, wash, and hardware, which is where garments are actually decided. When a series leaves denim, it leaves on purpose.

Rule 2

The cast is part of the garment

A robot mannequin carries the clothes in several series, sometimes alone and sometimes beside a model in the same fabric. The mannequin is not a stand. It changes the proportion, the joints, and how the eye reads the seam.

Rule 3

Finish it like it will be made

Boning, pin placement, chain gauge, the direction of a topstitch. These get resolved even when a piece stays digital, because a garment that could not be constructed shows.

The garments are made digitally. That changes how a collection gets developed, not what makes one good. This practice runs alongside my enterprise work, not instead of it.

Selected work

One idea, resolved as a collection.

Commercial work

Collection, campaign or cultural moment.

01

Collection direction

Material rule, silhouette, cast, image language and complete series.

A puffer with sprocket geometry worked into the quilting

02

Campaign world

Central idea, art direction, key images, treatment and production brief.

A model in white denim walking down palace steps

03

Fashion film

Narrative, movement, styling, keyframes and creative oversight.

A long coat photographed down the aisle of an abandoned cinema

Discuss a fashion commission

Award

Tommy Hilfiger AI Fashion Prize, 2023.

The bubble puffer won the Tommy Hilfiger × MVFW23 AI design challenge and was produced as a digital wearable by DRESSX.

The red, white and navy bubble puffer jacket selected by Tommy Hilfiger
Tommy Hilfiger × Irina Raicu · winning jacket

The competition announcement

Cannes Lions · 2024

Immersive fashion experience for the Cannes Lions executive breakfast.

Dr. Irina Raicu second from left on a four-person panel at the Microsoft Beachhouse in Cannes, in front of a screen reading Championing Women in AI
Championing Women in AI · Microsoft Beachhouse, Cannes · photo: Microsoft

A 3D-printed bracelet, connected to a FashionDesigner Assistant app, that changes the design printed on a T-shirt in real time from a voice command.

At Cannes Lions, I shared something close to my heart: a 3D-printed bracelet that brings fashion to life. With just a voice command, it changes the design on your T-shirt in real time, based on how you feel.

It is powered by AI and connected to my own FashionDesigner Assistant app. For me, it is more than tech, it is a way to turn emotion into wearable art, and give people a new kind of creative freedom.

The look worn on stage was generated end to end, including a screen set into the bodice that cycled images throughout the talk.

Public record

Where the work has been covered.

Awards and recognition

Press and publications

  • ForbesCoverage of the Tommy Hilfiger winning work · external link
  • Meta AI & CreativityFeatured practitioner perspective · external link
  • EuronewsAI fashion design documentary
  • Jing Daily · Harper’s Bazaar ArtPress features

Stages and education

  • Cannes LionsExecutive breakfast · 2024
  • London College of FashionFashion Innovation Agency
  • Milano Fashion InstituteDesign methodology session
Tommy Hilfiger
Award
Forbes
Press
Meta
Press
Jing Daily
Press
Harper’s Bazaar Art
Press
Cannes Lions
Stage

Awards, press coverage, stages and teaching. Not a client list.

Representation

Collections, campaigns and fashion films.

Available for creative representation and selected commissions across the US, UAE and internationally.