Fashion 4.0 and emerging designers: <i>leveraging data and AI to drive creativity, innovation and compliance in global supply chain regulation</i>

Abstract This paper presents three interrelated arguments concerning the fashion industry and regulation. First, we propose that Bertola’s and Teunissen’s concept of Fashion 4.0 offers a powerful framework for understanding the organization of global fashion today. This model emphasizes the dynamic, decentralized and technology-driven character of the ‘smart factories’, ‘smart networks’ and ‘smart products’ that dominate the global fashion industry. The value of this framework is illustrated with contemporary examples from the UK. Second, we argue that increasing regulatory demands impose uncertain and costly compliance obligations on firms across multiple aspects of their operations and supply chain. Our discussion highlights the confluence of challenges related to intellectual property, value chain monitoring and AI regulation. We contend that smaller and medium-sized enterprises, particularly emerging designers, are disproportionately affected by this regulatory burden—a phenomenon we term the ‘tragic character’ of contemporary compliance. Finally, we explore how the challenge of navigating an increasingly complex business and regulatory landscape necessitates the deployment of ever-more sophisticated digital technologies, especially AI. We outline several potential applications of such technologies across the fashion industry. In conclusion, we suggest that in the context of Fashion 4.0, understanding the interaction between different regulatory schemes, as well as their effects on industry stakeholders, is becoming critical yet increasingly complex and opaque. This raises difficult questions about the limits of law and other regulatory schemes in fostering innovative, sustainable, and socially responsible business practices in the fashion sector.