Initially hesitant about AI, fashion designer and filmmaker Keith Lissner, who has worked at Vera Wang and Ralph Lauren, is now producing films with the technology
When Keith Lissner first posted an AI-generated video of Christmas trees designed in the style of legendary fashion houses on Christmas Day, he expected perhaps five likes from friends. By the time his flight to Miami landed 2.5 hours later, the clip had been viewed 125,000 times. Within days, that number soared to 1.5 million.
“Initially I thought, what is this thing I’m doing,” he recalls with a laugh. Instead, he’d accidentally stumbled upon a new way to spread joy through the marriage of his two great loves: fashion and technology.
A classically trained fashion designer who had worked his way through Perry Ellis and Ralph Lauren before spending nearly 14 years at Vera Wang—the last five as executive vice-president of design—Lissner was initially resistant to using AI. “A friend of mine said, ‘You really should check out this AI stuff, because I think it’s going to take over our industry,’” he recounts. “I didn’t want to be unemployable.”
Keith Lissner’s viral AI video of Christmas trees in the iconic style of fashion houses has been seen more than 1.5 million times (Photo: Keith Lissner)
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For about four years, he experimented by creating images of luxury properties and boats. But it was that Christmas tree video that changed everything. More importantly, it was the comments that followed. “People were saying that I was making them smile,” Lissner says. “They were saying, ‘Thank you. Everything in my feed is so negative right now. It’s so nice to see something positive.’ When I read that, I thought, this is not just a hobby. This is a way that I could spread some joy in a world that really needs it.”
Today, Lissner creates AI films that reimagine fashion through fantastical narratives: flowers in the style of luxury houses, zodiac signs interpreted as haute couture gowns, museum paintings brought to life with movement and drama. His videos blend art history, floral motifs and fashion codes into short, mesmerising clips that have captivated millions.
But it’s his decades in the industry that give his work its particular resonance. When Lissner interprets a brand’s aesthetic, he draws on an encyclopaedic knowledge of fashion history and an innate understanding of design codes. It started with his mother teaching him to love flowers as a child; his obsession with art as “the greatest source of inspiration”; and his years studying the work of designers like John Galliano—his favourite, who now follows him on Instagram—and legendary fashion editor Grace Coddington.
“I am not just creating imagery or taking a stab in the dark,” he says. “That is the advantage of having had that formal education and working in the fashion industry for as long as I did.”
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