Fashion designers and retailers can book her digital double for photo shoots without her having to travel or physically be there, Gondora told AFP.

It is a solution that "saves time", said the model, who is also walking down in-person runways at London Fashion Week, which runs until Monday evening.

In the fashion industry, artificial intelligence is already used by brands to create visual imagery for e-commerce websites and customised advertising campaigns at a lower cost.

While the technology opens up opportunities for some, critics fear AI will render many professionals, including models, make-up artists and photographers obsolete -- and could risk promoting an artificial standard of beauty.

- Customisable -

In one video, sculpted male models flex their muscles next to glamorous women, with a backdrop of marble pools and gilded mirrors.

But none of it is real: this Christmas campaign was entirely generated with the use of AI by studio Copy Lab for the Swedish underwear brand CDLP.

"We are a very small company: I cannot go to a house in Beverly Hills and shoot a campaign," said CDLP co-founder Christian Larson.

According to Larson, "real" photography has limitations.

"You have a film of this many pictures, the sun will set, and the light will disappear, and the budget will run out," Larson told AFP.

But with AI, "you dive into this black hole of endless options."

Preparing an ad campaign involving a photo shoot in the French Alps for ski eyewear would normally take several months to complete and could cost 35,000 euros ($37,000), but can be done virtually for just 500 euros in a few days, claimed Artem Kupriyanenko, citing a campaign done by his technology company Genera.

London and Lisbon-based Genera boasts a catalogue of 500 AI-generated models, all of which it claims to own the copyrights for.

The avatars can be customised by clients: "We can do any body shape, any gender, any ethnicity," assured Genera's creative head Keiron Birch, who said the practice was "super inclusive".

But AI tends to create a characteristic face type, which differs from generator to generator, said Carl-Axel Wahlstrom, co-founder of Stockholm-based Copy Lab, an "AI creative studio".

MidJourney, for example, has a tendency to generate models with thicker lips.

- Grey area -

Generative AI is trained on banks of images of models that are often retouched or which reflect a dominant "white, Western" aesthetic, explained Wahlstrom.

To obtain less generic results, he refines the descriptions or "prompts" he provides to the AI engines.

And for more "authentic" results, he also trains them on "imperfect" databases, where he has, for example, added images of "regular skin, like my skin, my girlfriend's skin, people that we know's skin."

Alexsandrah Gondora was critical of brands which use AI images created from databases found on the internet without paying the model, who she called the "middleman".

Models also face being duplicated virtually without their knowledge.

The "Fashion Workers Act", due to come into force this summer in New York, hopes to tackle this grey area by enabling models to control the use of AI to reproduce their likeness. But its practical application could prove complicated.

Gondora, however, is compensated for the work done by her digital alter ego and has the final say on how it is used.

This is also the case when she helps bring Shudu Gram, an AI-generated black supermodel, to life.

This virtual character created in 2017 and billed as the "world's first digital supermodel" is followed by 237,000 followers on Instagram.

Gondora and several other real-life black models lend their features to various shoots and projects for Shudu.

Last year, Shudu was a model for a 1960s-inspired collaboration by fashion label MAX&Co and London-based designer Richard Quinn.

When used ethically, AI does not deprive models from diverse backgrounds of opportunities, assured Gondora, who claimed that this technology has "opened certain doors" for her.

One of them is that her AI model is "timeless".

"There is no expiration for my AI... it's timeless. Somewhere out there in the world, my AI will always be young to me, even when I'm old."

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Quite how the author, born in the small Hampshire village of Steventon on December 16, 1775, has managed to entice and enchant readers for more than two centuries in an ever-changing world remains a mystery.

Who would have thought that quotes from her six novels and pages of writings would adorn T-shirts and badges in the 21st century?

And not just in the UK, for the author who wrote of love and manners in the early 19th century has inspired fans around the world and her writings remain just as fresh and relevant today.

"Her novels are really concerned with wider moral issues," said Kathryn Sutherland, an Austen researcher and professor at the University of Oxford.

People feel Austen "is accessible, even though she is great literature, and also that you can read her books many times and each time you find something new in them", she added.

Sutherland also acknowledged it was fabulously filmed TV series and movies, with their brooding male leads, which had brought Austen wider audiences in the past decades.

The author of classic novels "Pride and Prejudice", "Emma" and "Sense and Sensibility" had only just become known when she died on July 18, 1817, aged 41.

But her six novels, wittily and sharply dissecting the lives of 19th century rural aristocracy, have since sold millions of copies, led to film adaptations and inspired many other productions, from "Bridget Jones" to "Bridgerton".

- Austen balls sold out -

Hundreds of people are expected to don period costume and stroll through the elegant Georgian streets of Bath in September for the annual 10-day Jane Austen Festival.

Austen lived for several years in the southwestern city, where she set her novels "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey".

A series of balls are planned, based around Austen's novels, with tickets already sold out for May and June despite a hefty £200 ($253) price tag.

With interest set to soar over the coming months, the BBC has kicked off the year with a new series -- "Miss Austen" -- devoted to the life of Jane's sister Cassandra, who burnt all her letters after her death.

She thus consigned to ashes some of Jane's deepest secrets, and to this day surprisingly little is known about the author.

Part of Austen's appeal rests on her depiction of a romanticised England with love affairs, tea and parties in the glorious surroundings of sprawling stately homes.

She also shone a harsh light on the status of women, for whom a good marriage was considered the only goal in a very restricted life.

The daughter of a clergyman, Austen herself remained unmarried despite a proposal, and spent most of her life with very little money.

- 'Women taking power' -

"Pride and Prejudice", with its main character Elizabeth Bennet who falls for the dashing Mr Darcy, is a firm fan favourite.

"Her female characters are very strong and vocal about their opinions and what they want," said Moa Aashacka, a 23-year-old Swedish student who was paying a Valentine's Day visit to the Jane Austen Centre in Bath with her boyfriend.

"They don't just accept marriage because they have to. They want to marry someone they actually like and love and who they feel respects them."

She added that Austen's novels were "more than romance... It's also about women taking power."

Tour guide Lauren Falconer, who helps giggling visitors dress up in Regency-style fashions, said all of Austen's characters are "so relatable" that "everyone has their favourite".

Maria Letizia d'Annibale, an English literature teacher visiting from Italy, said her pupils loved reading Austen's novels.

"Her stories are captivating. Young students really like her, especially the girls," she told AFP.

Part of the resurgence in Austen's appeal can be traced back to a stunning 1995 BBC adaption of "Pride and Prejudice", starring Colin Firth as Mr Darcy, and director Ang Lee's Oscar-winning adaption of "Sense and Sensibility", starring Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant.

Professor Sutherland credits these for propelling Austen "into a different level of popularity".

"In Jane Austen's novels, the hero, the male lead is really a kind of background figure. He is a moral instructor for the heroine, but he's not particularly sexy. Whereas in the films, of course, he's very sexy," she said.

"I think this turns the films into something that the novels are not, which is more narrowly romantic."

To coincide with the author's 250th birthday, Sutherland is organising an exhibition in Oxford called "Dancing with Jane Austen" with costumes from the films and examples of her writings about balls.

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Here are the main trends that were on show in Milan.

- Grey-

All the studios clearly had the grey suits from the 1980 film "American Gigolo" plastered all over their mood boards this season.

And it was in fact Giorgio Armani, who designed the famous suits worn by Richard Gere in the film, who showed a perfect mastery of the colour as the house closed Milan Fashion Week with its show on Sunday.

The "greige" colour invented by Giorgio Armani that skilfully combines grey and beige was spotted everywhere and in expensive materials: silk jacquard, cashmere and organza.

The brand showed off flowing jacket and trouser sets, trouser jumpsuits, and complex embroidery on floaty dresses.

Grey also played a central role in the collection of Antonio Marras, in prince of Wales suits, tartan and tennis stripes, always worn in a tailored style in both men and women's fashion.

The same went for Ferragamo, who used grey in large double-buttoned coats, worn over long silk dresses.

Just like its men's suits -- some contemporary, some in seventies style -- Gucci followed the same pattern for classic women's ensembles, with small jackets and knee-length skirts complemented by a pretty integral tunic emblazoned with the double GG.

Max Mara's collection highlighted flecked grey cardigans and dresses made from thick wool, while MM6 Maison Margiela showed off a greenish-grey hue in "Matrix" trench coats.

- Fasten your seatbelt -

The next season's trend will be belts.

Most looks at Max Mara's show involved belts, from coats and cardigans to a long woollen dress and both mini and long skirts.

Emporio Armani's looks also featured Japanese Obi belts, or belts made from velour with geometric buckles. At Gucci, the fashion house's symbolic horsebit was featured in a metallic belt.

In Prada's collection, thin belts created unexpected volume on oversize coats.

Meanwhile, for Tod and Ferragamo's collections, belts had a more functional role, with Tod's belts allowing for accessories and discreet pockets while Ferragamo's featured oversize bags.

Moschino's cheeky universe distorted the usual use of belts, using them to create structures that were part crinoline, part BDSM.

- Leather trench coats -

Next winter's coat could well be the leather trench coat.

Roberto Cavalli made a strong impression with an all-black rigid leather belted trench coat, while Tod's collection showed off trench coats made of supple, wrap-around leather in bright red, caramel and chocolate.

Rome-based fashion house Fendi featured a trench coat made of cognac leather in retro style with a shirt collar, while Gucci had several varieties, without belts, stripped down and with animal prints, made of beige old leather.

Dolce and Gabbana presented a big leather coat worn over a silk nightdress and accompanied with mustard yellow biker boots, part of the "Cool Girls" collection by the Sicilian duo.

- Matelasse -

The matelasse style was also very visible on the podiums at Milan on coats, jackets and sometimes skirts.

Fendi, which celebrates its 100th anniversary with an acclaimed collection by Silvia Venturini Fendi, granddaughter of the founders, featured a matelasse ensemble comprised of a flared skirt and small hyper-detailed golden ochre blouse that combined style and comfort.

Emporio Armani showed of the trend in short matelasse jackets with herringbone patterns, brightened up with velour details.

Max Mara produced a floor-length belted coat in matelasse style, while the back of Dolce and Gabbana's large coats featured matelasse leopard motifs that kept in line with the season's theme: street wear chic.

And Moschino took the matelasse brief literally with a humorous interpretation, featuring models wearing large padded quilts as coats and pillows instead of hats.

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Chiuri was inscrutable at the end of the 25-minute mega show in the Tuileries Gardens, briefly acknowledging applause from a crowd that was relatively low on A-list celebrities compared to usual.

Split into several distinct parts featuring the elements, the live streamed spectacle featured models in muted tones of black, beige, slate grey and green in 1980s-inflected designs for the Fall/Winter 2025 season.

Chiuri's collection included trench coats, a variety of embroidered white and cream blouses, high leather boots and long dresses featuring fake fur, as well as the lace and sheer materials that have dominated catwalks in recent seasons.

Her future remains a source of major speculation in the fashion industry with persistent rumours that she is on the way out.

Dior has boomed under her nine-year stewardship, becoming the second-biggest brand in the stable of luxury labels owned by French powerhouse LVMH.

But some observers have suggested the classic French house is growing stale and is ripe for a shake-up, with its growth of crucial financial and dynastic importance to LVMH owner Bernard Arnault.

He placed his daughter Delphine in charge of the brand in February 2023.

Chiuri, who in 2016 was the first woman to be named Dior's creative director after a career at Italian brands Valentino and Fendi, has refused to comment on rumours about her future.

Speaking to Grazia magazine last month, she mused on how the fashion business had changed over her 40-year career.

"Fashion used to be about family companies and there were small audiences -– clients and buyers," she said. "Now fashion is like a channel. It's something more popular, it's like pop. It's a form of media."

Dior parted ways with its long-time artistic director for menswear, Kim Jones, at the end of January.

- Designer debuts -

More than 100 fashion houses are set to unveil their Fall-Winter 2025-2026 collections during Paris Womenswear Fashion Week, hoping to rally sales in what is an increasingly difficult global luxury market.

Among the most anticipated moments will be Sarah Burton's debut at Givenchy on Friday.

Burton, a 51-year-old Briton who made her name as creative director at Alexander McQueen, was appointed to Givenchy in September.

Her nomination was one of a number of recent changes at major brands, with Belgian veteran Dries Van Noten stepping down from his namesake label last year and handing the reins to fellow countryman Julian Klausner, 33.

Klausner's first collection on Wednesday in Paris will also be closely scrutinised.

The French Haute Couture and Fashion Federation has also pulled off a feat by attracting Tom Ford, a mainstay of New York Fashion Week, to Paris for the first time.

Chief designer Haider Ackermann, in the top job at the label since September, will be making his catwalk debut.

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The look is set to last, with the Fall/Winter 2025 shows at Paris Womenswear Fashion Week over the last 10 days showcasing the material in almost every conceivable way.

Whether it was via stoles, long luxuriant coats, or embellishments on jackets or accessories, the fur look once associated with mob wives, Jackie Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor and European aristocrats has been thoroughly revived.

The high-end imitation version is now so realistic that many observers are unable to distinguish it from the real thing, providing a boon for manufacturers such as France-based Ecopel.

"Since last winter, every brand, from luxury houses to mainstream labels like Zara, has been offering an unprecedented number of faux fur pieces," Ecopel CEO and founder Christopher Sarfati, who supplies around 300 brands, told AFP.

The fur look had almost disappeared due to concerns about animal welfare, with major brands such as Saint Laurent, Gucci and Chanel dropping it altogether and London Fashion Week introducing a ban on its catwalks.

Real fur isn't banned in Paris, and charities including PETA and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation protested last week in the French capital about the "return of fur".

They worry that the ubiquity of replica fur will spark interest in real animal skins in the fashion industry, reversing the decades-long decline of a product that became a byword for cruelty.

- Upcycling -

"I think faux fur is cooler. It's more beautiful. And we don't approve of animal cruelty," said Bryn Taubensee and Patric DiCaprio, designers of the US-based Vaquera label, which presented a very fur-heavy collection this week in Paris.

Leading French fashion journalist Matthieu Bobard Deliere said: "I think you can count the brands still using real fur on the runways on one hand."

According to Ecopel, which closely monitors the market, 89 percent of fur seen at Milan Fashion Week was faux, compared to 62 percent in New York.

Two brands which featured real fur during Paris Fashion Week -- newcomer Hodakova run by Swedish designer Ellen Hodakova Larsson and Gabriela Hearst from Uruguay -- both said they were upcycling existing skins.

Some designers argue that this is more environmentally friendly, as they are not relying on faux fur which is usually made from polyester and other oil-based synthetic fibres.

"Repurposed vintage mink was unstitched and then painstakingly reassembled by hand in a family-run atelier," Hearst said of the mink coat that featured in her show.

The Parisian fur store Sam Rone told AFP that its sales have increased since last year.

Second-hand fur is in high demand, especially among Gen Z, which loves vintage fashion, with some now rummaging through their grandmothers' wardrobes.

If real fur has animal cruelty drawbacks and fake fur is polluting, the solution for the ethically minded consumer would appear to be new non-plastic varieties being developed.

Ecopel claims to have found a solution with the launch of 100-percent plant-based faux fur.

"Brands will no longer be able to say 'We don’t use faux fur because it’s made of polyester and petroleum'," Sarfati explained.

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The ambitious restoration of the derelict Argo factory has made it "one of the most beautiful buildings of Tehran", said architect Nazanin Amirian, visiting the latest exhibition there.

While the former factory with its towering chimney and cavernous cellar has been given a new life, many other historic buildings in the Iranian capital face a grimmer fate.

"We hoped restoring Argo would inspire others to preserve similar buildings," said Hamid Reza Pejman, director of the Pejman Foundation that took on the project.

But "economic conditions are tough", said Pejman, after years of crippling sanctions and with no government funding to support restoration endeavours.

Established more than a century ago, the Argo factory had produced one of Iran's oldest and biggest beer brands before falling into disuse.

It had ceased operations just a few years before the 1979 Islamic revolution, which toppled Iran's Western-backed shah and ushered in a strict ban on the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages.

The brand itself lives on alcohol-free, with rights to the Argo logo transferred to a local beverage company, Pejman said.

He said that since the factory was "out of operation" at the time, it was spared the fate of some other breweries which were set ablaze during the revolution.

Ever since the Islamic republic banned alcohol, bootleg beverages proliferated on the black market, with toxic methanol occasionally contaminating the natural ethanol and resulting in mass poisonings.

- 'Transform the city' -

Left a crumbling structure of weathered brick walls that also served as a shelter for homeless people, the Argo building was eventually purchased by the Pejman Foundation in 2016.

Its brick walls and chimney were restored, keeping their distinct industrial look, while other parts like the roof had to be entirely rebuilt.

Since 2020, the building has been open to the public as a museum, featuring local and international artists.

In a nod to its past life, the Argo arts centre offers non-alcoholic beer for sale.

The current exhibition is a collection of installation works, sculptures and paintings by Iranian multidisciplinary artist Maryam Amini.

Over the years, the building has been swallowed by Tehran's rapid urban expansion, now surrounded by high-rises, modern cafes and sprawling commercial centres in one of the city's busiest neighbourhoods.

Much like the Argo factory until 2016, some of Tehran's historic buildings including old movie theatres have been abandoned for years, largely due to economic hardship.

Others were demolished as shifting urban priorities have favoured modern developments over restoration.

Amir Ali Izadi, a 43-year-old artist visiting the factory-turned-museum, expressed his hope that similar buildings would undergo renovation.

"It would transform the city's landscape," he said.

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