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Vogue Italia’s May 2023 Bella Hadid cover story was not made entirely with AI: Hadid and her styling were photographed in a studio, then DALL-E-generated backgrounds and image extensions were combined with those photographs. The result was a human-directed fashion shoot built around fabricated worlds—and a revealing case study in what AI image tools can add to, and complicate for, visual production.
What Vogue Italia actually published
The project appeared in the May 2023 issue of Vogue Italia, in the story Ars Artificialis (pages 138–155). The magazine described the pictures as “Real shots on imaginary backgrounds created by the artificial intelligence program DALL-E.” Its article, published 27 April 2023, credits photographer Carlijn Jacobs, stylist Imruh Asha, AI artist Chad Nelson, and Bella Hadid. Vogue Italia’s project account presents the work as a collaboration, not as a fully generated model or an untouched AI output.
A 29 April 2023 report by Futurism described the feature as an early fashion-magazine use of AI-generated imagery, with DALL-E 2 used to create scenery rather than having human artists make every fantastical backdrop. The distinction matters: the model in the images was real, while much of the surrounding visual world was not.
How the hybrid images were made
- Develop the fashion concept. Jacobs and Asha planned the visual direction, including the styling and imagined settings.
- Photograph Hadid in a studio. The team captured the real subject and clothing before building the unreal environments around them.
- Generate and revise the environments. They used DALL-E to make backgrounds and extend images, refining prompts and supplying reference material rather than relying on one broad instruction.
- Choose and finish the results. The team evaluated generated options and used Photoshop compositing and retouching to bring selected elements together.
Jacobs said she moved from random inputs toward detailed keyword descriptions. Reference images incorporating Hadid’s lighting, shadows, texture, and clothing helped make generated surroundings more coherent with the photographs. Nelson helped refine prompts and increase resolution. Vogue’s account says the method had to be revised repeatedly; the images were more complex and time-consuming to make than expected. Vogue Italia’s account of the workflow is the primary source for these production details.
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Why use AI-generated backgrounds?
For this shoot, AI offered a way to explore and construct settings that would have been difficult to photograph as physical locations. It could help mock up fantastical visual ideas without building every backdrop or traveling to each imagined place. The tool expanded the range of possible scenery, but did not remove the need for a photographer, stylist, AI artist, editing, or decisions about which images worked.
Asha drew a boundary between ideation and finished work: “AI is very convenient to mock up ideas quickly, but I wouldn’t use it to create the final product.” Jacobs described her own experience as augmentation, saying the approach could “augment and complement my skills as a photographer, rather than replace them.” Those are the creators’ views of this project, not proof that AI will never substitute for human work in other commercial settings.
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What the images reveal about AI’s limits
Generating a striking scene is not the same as making a convincing composite. The team reported difficulties with perspective, integration, anatomy, and production time. A background can look compelling on its own yet fail to align with a subject’s camera angle, shadows, or proportions. The more carefully an image needs to match a real photograph, the more human judgment and correction may be required.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsJacobs said that making images without an artificial appearance could require “up to five times more work than traditional shooting methods.” This is her qualitative estimate for the work described, not an independently measured study or a general production benchmark. She also said the hybrid images proved more complex and time-consuming than expected. Nelson likened the process to “a visual slot machine”: generating possibilities does not guarantee a useful result.
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- Most Convenient & Easy To Organize: The clever slip-in pockets make arranging the big photo album book simple and fun. Practical: you can add both vertical & horizontal photos! Turn your photo book into a storytelling masterpiece effortlessly!
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Why the shoot drew criticism
The project also sits within a broader debate about commercial generative imagery. Futurism’s April 2023 coverage raised questions about the images used to train AI systems, compensation for artists, and whether generated work may displace human creatives. These concerns are not resolved by the fact that Vogue’s team directed and edited the images. Human creative labor was clearly involved in this shoot; that does not settle how the underlying models’ training data was sourced or how other artists should be compensated.
Jacobs described the photographer’s role as that of a curator “in charge of assisting the ‘machine’ in its creative process.” That framing captures both the appeal and the tension: the tool can generate visual options, while people still define the brief, select outputs, integrate them, and take responsibility for the published result. It also raises a practical question for clients and creators: who gets paid for each part of that process, and whose work has been used to make the tool possible?
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What to take from Vogue’s AI cover story
- The subject was photographed. Hadid and the fashion styling came from a real studio shoot; the imagined environments and extensions were generated and composited.
- AI was part of a workflow, not a one-click finish. Prompt iteration, references, curation, and Photoshop work shaped the final images.
- Creative control remained human, but the labor questions remain open. The makers’ involvement does not answer broader concerns about training data, artist compensation, and possible job substitution.
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