The Interline Podcast

This week on The Edit, Grace and Ben have picked a new slate of fashion technology stories to apply their quickfire analysis to.A case study of how Stitch Fix has parlayed a decade or more's data into a flywheel for its private label brands: https://www.modernretail.co/operations/how-stitch-fix-is-using-ai-and-customer-feedback-to-build-its-private-brands/A story about SHEIN's plans to build local hubs in Europe: https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2026/11/shein-to-invest-e500m-in-european-hub-as-eu-parcel-charges-hit-profits/New data from McKinsey and Big Technology about agentic commerce adoption and the growing share of search that comes through AI: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/who-wins-when-ai-does-the-shopping-new-evidence-on-agentic-commerce#/ and https://www.bigtechnology.com/p/openai-chatgpt-search-is-about-20The news that the tech-provocateurs behind Coperni are having to close the brand, and our take on their legacy of robots and spray-on materials: https://www.designboom.com/design/coperni-closes-revisiting-fashion-label-strangest-experiments-technology/The sea-change in US politics, and what it might mean for fashion's future ambitions for AI: https://www.404media.co/there-is-one-fight-american-voters-reject-tech-oligarchy/ and https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/11/big-tech-claims-voters-ai-backlash-is-anti-trump-not-anti-tech/

A product promise is made up of images, a written description, and a set of attributes. Those elements define eCommerce today, and they are fundamental to a vision for agentic commerce that depends on that data being available and being true.That places a heavy burden on the systems that govern the lifecycle of product data. Sometimes those are the same systems that govern the lifecycle of the product itself, but a fast-changing selling environment is also changing how brands and retailers think about the availability, the depth, and the utility of the data that represents the things they make.Today, Ben talks to Romain Fouache, CEO of Akeneo, about the weird realisation that, in the world of commerce we're heading for, product data might matter more than the product itself.

This week, Grace and Ben run a quickfire analysis of their favourite fashion technology headlines from the week prior, covering...An incoming holiday season where AI is shouldering the admin burden of hiring, while shipping costs skyrocket: https://www.gapinc.com/en-us/articles/2026/10/gap-inc-reimagines-holiday-hiring-with-ai-tools-to and https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/retail/us-retailers-face-record-holiday-delivery-prices/The difference in attitudes to AI between emerging markets and the US / UK / EU, along with what it might mean for the brands being built in new markets: https://www.economist.com/international/2026/10/22/the-surprising-popularity-of-aiBoF / Reuters' coverage of the impact that generative imaging is having on the modelling industry: https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/workplace-talent/how-ai-is-reshaping-the-modeling-industry/The difficult bargain that brands need to strike with social channels: https://fashionunited.uk/news/fashion/how-snapchat-wants-to-transform-relationships-between-luxury-fashion-houses-and-consumers/2026102691037 and https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/retail/streaming-culture-twitch-discord-menswear/ and https://www.404media.co/meta-ai-training-uk-eu/And finally, what eBay's Q3 results tell us about where fashion resale is headed: https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-inc-reports-third-quarter-2026-results/

TOAST's Brand Director, Rosie McKissock, joins Ben to talk about how the brand's social conscience shapes material choices, supplier relationships, and the boundaries it sets for AI.

This week's edition of The Edit is a little shorter than usual, to accommodate the team's travel, but Grace and Ben still find time to analyse:The scale and severity of the vulnerability found and patched (both by AI) in PHP, and the implications for fashion - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ckgel5xp2xv9tThe push from The Fabricant and other generative workspaces towards technical specifications - https://fashionunited.uk/news/fashion/the-fabricant-and-london-college-of-fashion-partner-to-digitise-garment-production/2026101990905A report on clothing repair and circularity (and a little bit about the circularity of Substack reporting itself) - https://circularfashionnews.substack.com/api/v1/file/b408cdb2-6743-42a7-8482-206043767f16.pdf

Every fashion brand is pursuing personalisation and questioning how AI changes the way they engage with their consumer, but the most important case studies might be found in beauty, where regulated claims, shopper participation, and outcome measurement over time create a potent loop.To compare the two industries, Ben talks to Anastasia Georgievskaya, CEO of Haut.AI.

Grace and Ben debate the top fashion technology headlines from the last week. This time around:Getty Images is going bankrupt. Is AI solely to blame? - https://www.reuters.com/business/getty-images-go-private-after-restructuring-deal-2026-10-12/Is AI accountability a new brand edge? - https://www.vogue.com/article/op-ed-ai-accountability-is-the-new-brand-equityPersonal agents and their potential impact on drop-centric models and returns - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8vgxpwlx9wkoEmbedded circuits in yarns - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-026-01712-2Cybersecurity for physical retail premises, through the lens of melting cheese - https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/10/fridge-hack-costing-millions-and-sparking-fires-stemmed-from-poor-security/

Individual brands have their own idiosyncratic relationships with generated images, but fashion, on aggregate, has embraced the value of synthetic photography for eCommerce in particular - even in the face of cultural polarisation.What's next for synthetic content? And what does it mean to create an authentic version of something that definitionally isn't real?To have that very "now" debate, Ben brings on Eran Dagan, CEO of Botika.

Grace and Ben analyse the most interesting fashion technology news headlines from the last week. This week's stories:Personal data and shopping queries were accessed through the ASOS hack, and people should be more bothered about the latter - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3zxjdw5ywgpoA viral story draws attention to how much information Amazon and other retailers capture and hold on their customers - https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/06/how-to-find-out-if-amazon-thinks-you-have-flat-buttocks/Sourcing instability, commodity pricing, and other climate-related risks represent a business continuity risk for fashion - https://fashionunited.uk/news/business/nature-is-becoming-fashions-most-underpriced-risk/2026100790738Through extended, verticalised computer use and in-house AI virtual try-on, OpenAI makes a bigger grab for owning consumer and enterprise interactions with technology - https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/01/chatgpt-can-now-virtually-try-on-clothes-for-you/ and https://openai.com/index/advancing-computer-use-with-ironclad/A new Microfibre Alliance aims to take action, which is hopefully on avoidance more than just mitigation - https://fashionunited.com/news/business/nike-patagonia-under-armour-join-new-microfibre-pollution-alliance/2026100775075

When it comes to visually representing a product, and building alignment around that visualisation, brands and retailers are placing some serious bets on the capabilities of both general-purpose frontier models and fashion-specific tooling. But is AI “good enough” to change the overall go-to-market trajectory?To evaluate both sides, Ben talks to Marco Marchesi, CTO of The Fabricant.