Last week the Clapham-based lifestyle website SheerLuxe made great fanfare in announcing its new fashion editor, Reem. New roles on this beat are rare. In truth, fashion editors are an endangered and rapidly dwindling species; there are but a handful of us left in London. If you want a job, you’re basically waiting for someone to either die or have a baby, so a fresh comrade always piques interest. Reem came with a prominent announcement on an industry directory, flashy Instagram post and dedicated introductory interview feature. Wow, Reem must be really special, I thought; weird I’ve never heard of her.
Oh wait, sad plot twist. In spite of the sexy snaps of the inside of her handbag, “go-to” lunch salad and shiny new headshot, Reem is actually a “new AI enhanced team member”, “powered by SheerLuxe”. Well! Was the SheerLuxe community thrilled by this new staff-bot, ready to dispense all manner of fashion and beauty advice? Encouragingly for us IRL fashion editors, no. The brand was so harassed on its social media channel that the next day the entire office took a “duvet day” to “unwind, switch off and maybe stay in bed”, before presumably spending that time coming up with the heartfelt apology issued over three slides in its next Instagram post.
