AI in fashion: what can you do with a design from an AI tool?

A design from an AI tool can come too close to another brand's work, and not everything you make with AI is protected. What that means for your collection, your lookbook and your arrangements with freelancers.

For many labels and designers, AI in fashion has simply become a tool. A mood board comes out of an AI tool in an afternoon, a print gets developed further with a few prompts and the lookbook sometimes features a model who doesn’t exist.

Legally, it’s less straightforward than it looks, because a tool trained on existing collections can hand you a design that comes too close to another brand’s work. Not everything you make with AI is protected if someone copies it, either. And since 2 August 2026, images with a generated model come with a disclosure obligation. If you’re a brand that wants to keep its collection images out of AI models, the first two parts of this article are for you.

Would you like an AI design checked before it goes into production or your arrangements on AI put in writing? Call 020 675 88 21 or send us a message using the form at the bottom of the page.

When an AI tool may train on fashion designs and collection images

AI models learn from vast amounts of existing material, including photos of collections, lookbooks and product images from webshops. That material is copied in the process, which brings copyright into play. Even so, AI training doesn’t always need permission, because the DSM Directive has two exceptions for text and data mining. The first is only for scientific research by research organisations and cultural heritage institutions. The second applies to everyone, including a commercial AI company, as long as it has lawful access to the work and the rightholder has not expressly reserved that use (Article 4 of the DSM Directive, in the Netherlands Article 15o of the Dutch Copyright Act, in Dutch). For work that is online, the reservation has to be machine-readable.

Contrary to what many designers assume, training is allowed unless the author has ruled it out. If you use an AI tool yourself, you usually don’t have to answer for that training, because the copying for training happens at the provider’s end. What matters to you is what comes out of the tool.

Since 2 August 2025, providers of large AI models have had to put in place a policy to identify and comply with such reservations. They also have to publish a summary of the content they trained on (Article 53(1)(c) and (d) of the AI Act). For models placed on the market before 2 August 2025, this applies by 2 August 2027 at the latest.

Shielding your lookbooks and product photos from AI training

If you’re a brand that doesn’t want its images to end up in an AI model, you have to set that out yourself. Our page on AI and copyright explains how to word that reservation and where it should go.

For a fashion brand, something else comes into play that the page doesn’t cover. Your images rarely sit only on your own website. Retailers, distributors and platforms receive your product photos to sell your collection and put them on their own sites, where the reservation in your robots.txt does nothing. So agree with those parties that they use your images only to sell your products and that they keep AI crawlers out in the same way you do. If the photographer holds the copyright in your campaign photos, also settle who makes the reservation.

Three tests for an AI design that resembles existing clothing

An AI tool can produce a design that comes close to an existing piece, sometimes without you recognising it. If you put that design into production, you are the one putting it on the market and the rightholder will come after you. Three rights can stand in the way, each with its own test.

For copyright, since the Court of Justice of the European Union’s judgment in Mio/konektra of 4 December 2025, what counts is whether creative elements of the existing design come back recognisably in your piece. Your piece can infringe even if it looks different as a whole. Following a trend or style remains free. It makes no difference to the infringement that the tool suggested the design and you didn’t know the original, although it can be taken into account in the damages. The Court does leave room for a similar design that genuinely came about independently. No court has yet decided whether a design from a tool that may have been trained on the original counts as independently created.

Design law works differently. If the existing design is registered as a Benelux design or an EU design, the holder can act against any product that does not produce a different overall impression on the informed user, even if you have never seen the registered design (Article 3.16(1) of the Benelux Convention on Intellectual Property, Article 10 of the EU Design Regulation). An unregistered EU design only protects against copying.

Then there’s trade mark law. A tool trained on collection images sometimes reproduces a monogram, a stripe in a fixed position or a logo. In England, the High Court held on 4 November 2025 that images from Stable Diffusion bearing an imitation of the Getty Images watermark amounted to trade mark infringement in a few instances. A Dutch court isn’t bound by that judgment. If your AI design contains a recognisable mark belonging to someone else, take it out before the piece is made.

So check an AI design against all three before production. Run a reverse image search for similar pieces and look in the design registers of the BOIP and the EUIPO. If you’re unsure about a particular design, we’ll check it before it goes to the factory.

Copyright in a clothing design made with AI needs visible human choices

The Mio/konektra judgment also deals with when a design is itself protected. The Court requires free and creative choices that reflect the designer’s personality and that are visible in the design itself. The design process and your intentions only count in so far as they can be seen in the piece.

A prompt describes what you want, but the form then comes from the tool. You get protection for what you decided in the final piece: the cut you adjusted, the print you rebuilt, the combination of fabric and details you chose yourself.

A court in Prague showed in 2023 how that plays out in proceedings (Municipal Court in Prague, 11 October 2023, 10 C 13/2023). The claimant wanted to be recognised as the author of an image that an AI tool had made on the basis of their prompt. The court required evidence of who had given the instruction to the tool and with which prompt, but the claimant had nothing beyond their own statement, so the claim failed. The court added that a prompt is at most a theme or an idea and not a work in itself. In Germany too, a court refused protection in February 2026 for three logos made with AI; we wrote about that in AI-generated logos are not protected.

So record your design process for each design. Keep sketches, prompts and the tool’s suggestions. Above all, record what you changed yourself afterwards, always with a date.

Design law as a safety net for designs from an AI tool

Where copyright falls short, design law can help. Two weeks after Mio/konektra, the Court of Justice ruled in Deity Shoes (18 December 2025) that an EU design does not require a minimum of creative activity. The design has to be new and have individual character, even if, as in that case, it largely comes from a supplier’s catalogue and the brand only made small changes to it.

The Court has not decided whether a design that comes entirely out of an AI tool gives rise to a valid design. The EU Design Regulation grants the right to the designer (Article 14) and doesn’t say who that is when no human was involved. You’re therefore in a stronger position with a design in which you made the decisive choices.

In the same judgment, the Court held that fashion trends do not restrict a designer’s freedom to the point where small differences from earlier designs are enough for individual character. That matters for AI designs, because a tool trained on existing collections can easily produce something close to pieces that already exist.

A filing makes sense for pieces that stay in the collection for several seasons. For the rest of the collection you can deliberately rely on the unregistered EU design, which protects against copying for three years. Our page on protecting a clothing design explains how to make that choice.

Labelling an AI model in your lookbook or webshop

Since 2 August 2026, you have to disclose that a deepfake you make with AI has been artificially generated or manipulated (Article 50(4) of the AI Act). A deepfake is image content that resembles existing persons, objects or places and would falsely appear to be authentic (Article 3(60)).

A garment can be such an existing object too. If you put a realistic AI model in your dress, you show that garment in a photo that can pass for real. So for a lookbook or product page with such a model, assume a disclosure is needed, visible with the image itself. Our page on AI in advertising covers how the European Commission applies this to advertising and who makes the disclosure when an agency creates the image.

The providers of the tools also have to mark their output in a machine-readable format (Article 50(2)). If a tool was already on the market before 2 August 2026, the provider has to comply by 2 December 2026 at the latest (Article 111(4), inserted by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744). An invisible marking in the file like that doesn’t replace your disclosure.

If you have a digital twin made of a real model, you also need that model’s consent. Set out what you’ll use the twin for, for how long and for what fee, because without those arrangements you run into image rights. More on this under image rights for businesses.

A label doesn’t solve everything either. If an AI image shows the fabric or the fit differently from how the garment really is, your product presentation can be misleading, with or without a disclosure.

What to agree on AI with freelance designers and factories

Freelance designers are increasingly working with AI too, which means you sometimes get less than you think. If a freelancer assigns all copyright to you in the contract, nothing passes for any part that has no copyright in it. The Dutch Copyright Act also requires a written agreement and a deed for an assignment (Article 2(3) of the Dutch Copyright Act, in Dutch).

So agree whether the designer may use AI, for what and with which tools. Have it recorded for each design which parts come from a tool. Also have the designer undertake that your unreleased collection won’t end up in a tool that uses input for training. The same goes for factories and manufacturers working with your tech packs: your designs and specifications stay confidential, including towards AI tools. Our page on the AI clause explains how to put that in writing.

Reading the AI tool’s terms before a design goes into production

The tool also determines what you can do with an AI design. Its terms of use tell you whether you may use the output commercially and whether the provider uses your input to train the model further. They also show whether the provider indemnifies you if a design turns out to resemble someone else’s. For unreleased designs, only use a version that doesn’t use your input for training.

Also record which tool and which version you used for each design, because you’ll need it if another brand makes a claim and to prove your own contribution. Under fashion law you’ll find how design, brand and contracts fit together in fashion.

An earlier version of this article appeared in Dutch in September 2025 in the Mode & Recht column of Textilia.

Designing with AI or planning an AI model for your next campaign? Call 020 675 88 21 or send us a message using the form below.