The Interline Podcast

Arne Arens made the unusual leap from being a brand executive to leading a technology company in fashion’s most unforgiving segment: manufacturing innovation. From creating net-new jobs to translating digital product creation outputs into seamless garments, his big bet is on this particular transformation taking root.

Ben puts the vision to the test.

This week, Ben and Grace discuss:

The launch of Meta's Muse image model, with opt-out likeness tagging - and the ongoing battle between human models are the companies they shoot for, who seem willing to misappropriate their likenesses: https://www.theverge.com/tech/962485/meta-muse-image-ai-model-instagram and https://wwd.com/sourcing-journal/industry-news/fashion-model-racial-discrimination-artificial-intelligence-1239051932/

The more tangible social impacts of AI-supporting data centre build-outs in the UK and abroad: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/06/scotland-lanarkshire-village-ai-datacentre

The growth of wardrobe-quantifying / cataloguing apps: https://www.just-style.com/news/whering-seed-funding-ai/?cf-view

Some positive uses of AI in sorting and separating textiles and second-hand garments: https://tech.eu/2026/07/08/berlins-reversefashion-bags-seven-figure-funding-to-scale-textile-sorting/ and https://thenextweb.com/news/fleek-25m-series-b-secondhand-fashion-ai

And the launch of ChatGPT Voice, based on the new GPT-Live model, and what it might mean for layering persuasion on top of a novel modality for interaction: https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-live/

Zalando has pushed further than perhaps any other company in embedding generative AI into its content creation - from product page materials to full-blown creative campaigns - and in talking openly about it. But if cost-saving isn’t the primary objective, what is?

Ben talks to Glazione Rocha, Creative Director, to find out how a company at the bleeding edge of deploying AI for consumer-facing content approaches the work, and how they think about the impact of their choices.

For this week's edition of The Edit - the quickfire fashion technology analysis show from The Interline - Ben and Grace talk about...

Fashion's place in Substack sponsorships:https://on.substack.com/p/a-business-model-that-works-for-creators

Domestic manufacturing and tech startups against the backdrop of UK political devolution: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/29/what-is-andy-burnhams-economic-and-political-blueprint-for-britain

The surveillance state, and the spying potential of wearables: https://www.vogue.com/article/testing-mias-anti-surveillance-streetwear

A potential new frontier in blended material recycling: https://wwd.com/sourcing-journal/sj-denim/hkrita-jeanologia-looptworks-scale-green-machine-recycling-1239032559/

And incoming legislation and labels for AI content: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/24/adidas-uniqlo-calvin-klein-ads-banned-asa-uk-recycled and https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-icons-labelling-ai-generated-content

Outside of software itself, knitting is probably the closest thing fashion has to coding: a verifiable, binary discipline defined by scarce talent, and specialised software and hardware. Upending it might be the industry’s high bar for new technology - but one company is trying anyway.

Ben talks to Garrett Gerson, CEO and Co-Founder of Variant3D.