Italian luxury fashion house Valentino faced public backlash after releasing an advertising campaign for its Garavani DeVain handbag that used AI-generated visuals, drawing widespread criticism online and coverage from multiple industry outlets. The campaign, part of a project called the Valentino Garavani DeVain Digital Creative Project, featured the work of nine experimental artists including AI-generated imagery.
The promotional video showed models emerging from handbags and morphing into surreal shapes, with human arms twisting into the brand's logo. Viewers on Instagram and other platforms labeled the visuals "AI slop," calling the campaign disturbing and tacky. The reaction was widespread enough to draw dedicated coverage from fashion and marketing trade outlets.
Valentino had disclosed that the project used artificial intelligence, with a link from the Instagram post directing followers to a website acknowledging the AI involvement. The disclosure did not defuse the criticism. Commenters accused the brand of using the controversial imagery to generate attention rather than to serve the $2,116 product it was meant to promote.
Marketing analysts who covered the incident said the backlash reflects a broader pattern among luxury and consumer brands in 2026, where audiences have grown more skilled at identifying AI-generated imagery and more critical of its use in brand-facing creative work, even when companies are transparent about it.
Valentino has not announced whether it will alter or remove the campaign. The company has not issued a public statement responding to the criticism beyond the disclosure already present on its campaign site.
Source: eWeek - https://www.eweek.com/news/valentino-ai-misfire/