The Sheglit AI Fiasco: Did We Learn Anything?

 Dear my fellow frillies,

    If you a lolita and were NOT one of the many lolitas who made the mass exodus from X (formerly Twitter, may she rest in peace), then you might have seen some drama occur with the gothic and classic brand Sheglit occur last month. Today I want to discuss what happened and what lessons we can glean from the event. 

    In late April 2026, Sheglit's official X posted AI-generated images of a model wearing an OP soon to be released. Sheglit claimed they will use AI models to showcase new releases in real life. 

The suspicious post

    This was followed by immediate backlash by both the Western AND Japanese EGL communities. Everyone expressed their disappointment that Sheglit would use AI to advertise and model dresses. There was even some confusion if Sheglit was also planning to use AI to design pieces in the future. Sheglit responded with this statement, posted originally in Japanese but I have translated here: 

Sheglit's response to the backlash

The official response

    I wasn't following closely enough to see what the response to this statement alone was, but it must have been piss poor, as they followed with yet another response that contained an actual apology: 

Finally, the apology

    So that's the drama. All of this happened in the span of two days. It was honestly wild to watch in real time. I was frantically taking screenshots and sending them to my comm's discord because I had never seen any lolita brand do this before. As of writing this blog post, I discovered this HAS been done two years ago by Sufflé Song, but shocking nonetheless. What I still do not understand is in what world would they think this would be acceptable in OUR community? If they were trying to show designs in a more wearable sense, why couldn't they have hired models like other brands do?

    Discussions among my comm circulated various theories. One member suggested it was probably a push from higher above as more and more companies are enforcing AI use to appear as modern and progressive. Even my own job has encourage use of CoPilot in daily work tasks. Another member suggested it's pure laziness and cost saving. That is certainly a big reason why companies are adopting AI.

Love & laces, ♱ Sara ♱

♱ཐི ʕ.•ﻌ•.ʔ ཋྀ♱