I slaved away at the machine. For three long months, I pushed pixels and bent AI to my will–feeding it prompts, tweaking, refining, and generating model after model –because that was the requirement. Numbers. A staggering quantity of designs, each one meticulously created, yet stripped of the essence that breathes life into fashion.

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In the past, every bag I designed was born from my soul—an expression of feeling, a reflection of the moment. But this? This was an experiment. An exercise in mass creation, where no one asked for the story, the emotion, or the spark –just volume, just output. They were experiments, iterations demanded by commercialisation, detached from the story, the raw feeling, the truth.

And yet, even in this process –this detached, mechanical submission to the industry –I found myself in the details. In the lines, the textures, the silhouettes.

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I can see these bags worn by the women I’ve always wanted to design for. Yet, they weren’t chosen –not by the committee, and not by me. They were fed to me by the machine, created not from instinct but from necessity.

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My first designs were black, croc-embossed, timeless –the style of forever. Stepping into color was drastic, a departure from my nature. And yet, even in this unfamiliar space, something of me remained. Perhaps it was the attention to detail, the structure, the possibilities within them.

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Because in the end, true design rests in the craftsmanship –the unsung heroes –and the quality of the materials that bring a vision to life.

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But fashion is also fantasy. It’s the world conjured through the lens of a fashion shoot, the story told by the model who wears it, the atmosphere built around a single image. It’s not just about what we make –it’s about how we make people feel.

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People don’t always know what they want –until you give it to them. That’s the role of the designer: not to follow, but to guide. To tell the story first, and let the desire follow.

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So, do these designs count as mine?

Do they belong to me, even if they weren’t born from my soul?

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I still don’t know. But they are here, they exist, and they deserve to be seen.

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–Tania Segbefia

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