Investigation into J.Crew's use of AI-generated imagery to recreate its brand aesthetic for marketing and product photos.

Our interviews with Nathan Fielder, Brendan from Turnstile, Adam Sandler, Issy Wood, Andrew Kuo, MJ Lenderman, Kim Gordon, Steven Yeun, Maya Hawke, Bon Iver, André 3000, 100 gecs, Matty Matheson, Laraaji, Eckhaus Latta, Mike Mills, Tyler, The Creator, John C. Reilly, Rashida Jones, Camiel Fortgens, Father John Misty, Kate Berlant, Clairo, Conner O’Malley and more are here.Mach 3+ city intel for traveling the entire planet is here. Check out rugs, cushions, lamps, ceramics and more in our Home Goods Index.Here at Blackbird Spyplane, we don’t just celebrate great clothes and explore the secrets of sauce semiotics. We also scan developments in the culture at large for signs of Where We Are Swagwise as a Society. Case in point? They don’t say it anywhere, and no one else has reported on this, but these “classic,” throwback-vibed images J.Crew posted to Instagram the other day were, in fact, A.I. generated: Erin and I are longtime, on-the-record vintage J.Crew appreciators. So when these got shared into my timeline earlier this month, I was intrigued. They’re styled to resemble J.Crew’s catalog imagery from its late ‘80s and early ‘90s heyday — an aesthetic that’s been mined and enshrined over the past few years on moodboard accounts like Lost J.Crew and the excellent Simplicity Man, which regularly post J.Crew swipe from that era.I should clarify that I was intrigued, but not so intrigued that I didn’t do what I imagine most people did, especially people who saw these images on their phones, which was glance at them for a couple seconds, take note of the circa-1987 energies, and then keep it pressing.But this past weekend, a well-placed Spyfriend tipped me off that, according to someone else with knowledge of the images’ creation, they were made using A.I. I gave the posts a closer look, and asked a couple other eagle-eyed, photo-savvy Spyfriends to do the same. One enlisted her boat-fluent dad. And damn it if we didn’t turn up a bunch of telltale glitches and weirdness