Codes of Culture | Issue 100
AI clones, Coachella proof-of-concepts, and fashion's new gatekeepers.
Welcome back to Codes of Culture. I’m Ashumi Sanghvi.
Last week, I was at Watches and Wonders as a guest of Hermès and was blown away by the sheer scale of the designs, the set designs for every brand, and the exhibition halls. I wrote about it here and shared more on my IG, and this NYTimes article shares accurately how the fair has evolved to reflect our times. The presence of influencers and creators was clear, as validated by YouTube’s continued growth for the second year in a row.
One of the things that caught my eye this week was Google’s clever ( and very timely) product placement, integrating its VTO release into search (which we shared last week here) with a spot in the newly released Devil Wears Prada 2- check it out here.
In this week’s issue, Coachella is now a proof-of-concept environment for experiential strategy; AI influencer clones; Highsnobiety and Google Pixel’s partnership to launch a tech-first fashion school; Mira Duma’s new fashion tech platform; and highlights from Milan Design Week.
📢 We are officially at issue 100! Feels like we’ve reached a milestone. Thank you to everyone who has read, shared, and supported it from the beginning, and to those joining us now. As Codes of Culture evolves alongside Future+, some future issues will sit behind a paywall as we build a broader media and intelligence platform around the work.
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📖In this issue:
Coachella’s brand perimeter has become the destination.
Influencers are licensing their likenesses to AI.
Google Pixel and Highsnobiety built a school for independent fashion founders.
Sparkit wants to put a full fashion production studio in a single app.
Milan Design Week opened under the theme “Be the Project.”
1. CULTURE AND SOFT POWER
Coachella’s brand perimeter has become the destination.
What’s happening: Weekend one of Coachella generated $870 million in Media Impact Value, nearly equalling the prior year’s total across both weekends. The highest-performing activations were brand environments rather than stages. Rhode’s invite-only world tied to the Bieber headline generated $10 million in MIV. 818 operated as a multi-brand host platform. Pinterest ran a phone-free experience that earned outsized coverage by resisting every other brand’s instinct. Dior generated major fashion media presence through costume, dressing Sabrina Carpenter in four custom looks without building a single physical space. Some attendees this year made the trip without a festival ticket, arriving only for the brand environments.
TLDR:
$870M in Media Impact Value from weekend one alone. Coachella is now a compressed content production event that happens to include a music festival.
Rhode built a world around the Bieber headline, generating $10M in MIV. The most effective activations felt like destinations, with campaign logic secondary.
Pinterest ran against every other brand’s instinct and earned significant coverage precisely because of it.
Dior generated major fashion coverage through cultural capital at zero activation cost.
Some attendees came without festival tickets. When the perimeter becomes the destination, that is a structural shift, a permanent one.
Why it matters: Coachella is now a proof-of-concept environment for experiential strategy at a global scale. The brands that performed best outframed rather than outspent. That activation logic will define how premium brands approach every tentpole this year. The question is whether you arrive with a world or a stand.
2. CREATOR ECONOMY AND AI
Influencers are licensing their likenesses to AI.
What’s happening: Vanity Fair’s investigation into AI influencer clones documents how platforms, talent agencies, and creators are moving quickly to commercialise digital likeness. Khaby Lame sold biometric rights to Rich Sparkle Holdings in a transaction reportedly valued at $975 million in stock, with the company projecting his digital twin could generate over $4 billion in annual product sales. CAA is now treating digital twin management as a core priority. YouTube, Meta’s AI Studio, and TikTok’s Symphony Avatars all have live or in-development creator-clone infrastructure. A study of over 500 US influencers found that 62% reported burnout, which they cited alongside global scaling as the primary reason creators are considering delegating their digital presence.
TLDR:
Lame’s deal is valued at $975M in stock. Rich Sparkle Holdings’ share price subsequently fell more than 90% from its January high. The distance between the pitch and proof of concept is significant.
CAA is managing digital twin portfolios. Talent agencies are repositioning around likeness governance.
YouTube, Meta, and TikTok all have creator clone infrastructure in place. The distribution rails are already built.
62% of influencers report burnout. AI cloning is being sold as both a scalability and a wellness solution simultaneously.
The consent and IP framework is still in its early stages. The legal questions creators face now will extend well beyond the creator economy.
Why it matters: The structural question is who controls the consent layer, and what happens to parasocial trust once the person on screen may or may not be present. Brands building long-term creator relationships need to be negotiating likeness and AI rights now, ahead of the moment those clauses become contested.
3. FASHION, TECH AND EDUCATION
Google Pixel and Highsnobiety built a school for independent fashion founders.
What’s happening: Highsnobiety and Google Pixel have launched PIFT, the Pixel Institute of Fashion and Technology: a year-long programme for emerging fashion entrepreneurs combining brand-building mentorship, industry lectures, and hands-on project development, with Google Pixel embedded as the creative production tool throughout. The 2026 cohort includes Chet Lo, Priya Ahluwalia, Matthias Schweizer, and the Ottolinger co-founders. The programme’s first major activation is at Milan Design Week, where a public Build-A-Brand workshop demonstrates the central thesis: a smartphone, the right methodology, and the right access can deliver what fashion schools used to require years and significant expense to provide. The stated aim is to democratise tools, networks, and industry knowledge previously available only to the well-connected.
TLDR:
A year-long structured programme. PIFT is designed to produce commercially credible designers with educational substance behind the partnership.
Google Pixel is the creative tool embedded throughout the process, capturing, developing, and publishing work at every stage. The hardware is the curriculum.
Access to Milan Design Week is built into the programme from week one. Cultural event proximity is treated as education infrastructure.
Chet Lo, Priya Ahluwalia, and the Ottolinger founders are in the cohort. The talent selection signals serious curatorial intent.
The explicit thesis is access: opening what has historically required a fashion school pedigree, an established network, and years of runway adjacency.
Why it matters: Fashion education is expensive, opaque, and heavily networked. PIFT is a direct intervention in that model, with a technology company providing the tools, a culture platform providing the access, and working designers providing the curriculum. Whether it produces the next generation of independent labels or primarily builds loyalty to Google hardware is the question worth watching. The model signals where fashion talent development is heading.
4. FRONTIER TECH AND FASHION
Sparkit wants to put a full fashion brand studio in a single app.
What’s happening: Mira Duma’s new company, Sparkit, is a mobile platform that lets creators design, produce, and launch a fashion brand in a single app. Its AI system, Gabi, combines 17 specialist agents across brief-to-tech pack, factory sourcing, and live storefront. The platform connects to over 700 vetted factories across three quality tiers, more than 300 mills and materials science labs, and ships to 196 destinations. No minimum order. No upfront production cost. Designs are made on demand. A community funding layer allows supporters to back brands and earn from sales.
TLDR:
From concept to live storefront in a single AI conversation. Design, production, sourcing, and logistics handled in one place.
No minimums, no upfront cost. On-demand production removes the inventory risk that has historically made it expensive to start independently.
700-plus factory partners across three tiers, 300-plus material science labs. Supply chain access that would previously have taken years of industry relationships to assemble.
A native community funding and revenue-sharing model is built into the infrastructure from launch.
Sparkit launches the same week PIFT opens in Milan. Both apply pressure on the same gatekeeping mechanisms from opposite directions.
Why it matters: The supply chain relationships that have historically underpinned mid-market and premium-brand advantage, factory access, material knowledge, and minimum-order leverage are being turned into software features. The more interesting question is whether luxury’s value proposition, which depends partly on process opacity and perceived scarcity, holds as that infrastructure becomes accessible and legible.
5. DESIGN AND CULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Milan Design Week opened under the theme “Be the Project.”
What’s happening: Milan Design Week 2026, running 20–26 April, is the 64th Salone del Mobile, hosted across Brera, Tortona, Isola, and two new Alcova venues at a former military hospital and Villa Pestarini. The Fuorisalone theme, “Be the Project,” reorients the week toward creative process and responsibility rather than finished output. Triennale Milano anchors the institutional programme with Toyo Ito’s retrospective of Andrea Branzi, the Eames Houses exhibition, including the debut of the Eames Pavilion System developed with Kettal, and Alphabet, tracing thirty years of Barber and Osgerby. Off-site, Zaha Hadid Architects presents a mindfulness installation for Audi; Lina Ghotmeh has built a labyrinth inside Palazzo Litta’s courtyard; Samsung is running a twelve-zone experiential exhibition; and Issey Miyake is transforming waste paper into furniture.
TLDR:
“Be the Project” frames process, experimentation, and responsibility as the subject. The editorial position determines which conversations get legitimised during the week.
Triennale’s Branzi retrospective, Eames Houses, and the Barber and Osgerby retrospective together make this year’s institutional programme a deliberate act of canon-building.
Alcova’s expansion into a former military hospital continues its model of placing independent and experimental work in charged historical spaces. The geography of legitimacy is moving outward from the centre.
Samsung, Audi, and Prada Frames are participating this year. That integration has now normalised.
Milan is hosting the establishment and its challengers simultaneously this week. PIFT and Sparkit are both here, in the same city, making the same argument from different angles.
Why it matters: Milan Design Week has quietly become one of the most valuable experiential stages on the global brand calendar, and this year’s roster makes that explicit. Audi, Samsung, and Prada are not showing up as sponsors; they are building immersive environments that sit alongside institutional retrospectives and independent design exhibitions. That is a deliberate strategic choice. The week draws an audience of cultural decision-makers, press, and creative industry leaders that no single brand event can replicate, and the city’s distributed format means a well-conceived installation travels far beyond the people who walk through it.