‘Dehumanising’: Model Shereen Wu says her face was edited with AI to look white

A Taiwanese-American model has hit out at a well-known fashion designer who reposted on social media a picture of her appearing white in a runway photo.

A Taiwanese-American model has hit out at a well-known fashion designer who reposted on social media a digitally-altered photo of her appearing white on the runway.

In a TikTok video watched close to two million times in the last week, Shereen Wu alleged Michael Costello – who has worked with Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and Celine Dion and appeared on Project Runway – posted a edited photo to his Instagram from a recent Los Angeles fashion show.

The image shows Wu in the black gown she walked the runway in – but her face has been changed so that she appears to be a white woman.

“I recently walked for Michael Costello … but that’s not me who he posted on his story,” the 21-year-old said in the clip.

“Michael’s a big designer with 1.7 million followers. Editing my face and removing my race is completely disrespectful.”

'I recently walked for Michael Costello …' Picture: TikTok

' … but that's not me.' Picture: TikTok

Costello denied Wu’s accusation in an Instagram Story, saying the image was “fan art” sent to him by an unspecified source, and that he had not been the one to alter it.

He did, however, take “responsibility” for choosing to share it.

“I didn’t think before resharing it on my Instagram Stories as I was on an emotional rollercoaster, resharing all that I was tagged in.”

In the post, which has since disappeared, he also said that “in light of the false allegations presented in [Wu’s] videos”, his eponymous brand would be “moving forward with legal proceedings”.

Wu, who did not get paid for walking in the runway show at Los Angeles Fashion Week, said she’d hoped she’d at least “be paid in exposure”.

“But I didn’t get exposure, because this is an edited photo. By cutting off my head, neither did the makeup artist, hairdresser or photographer. That’s what peeves me so much,” she said of the image.”

While the origin of the altered runway photo Costello shared is unknown, Wu said she believed someone had used artificial intelligence to create the white face that covered her own.

It was her mum, not her, who first noticed that her face had been replaced, Wu said. Picture: Instagram

It was her mum, not her, who first noticed that her face had been replaced, Wu added.

“My initial reaction was, ‘who would remove someone’s head like that?’” she said.

“My next reaction was fear, then a sense of melancholy because my mum had to see her daughter’s face cut.”

She said she hoped “people can understand how hurtful it is to have your work stolen from you”.

“It’s very dehumanising. The very thing that makes us human is our ability to create something beautiful, and to have this beauty be twisted into something that can potentially be ugly is a terrifying thought.”

In the caption of her video, she wrote: “I want to explain what happened, and I hope other models in the future feel comfortable to speak up,” she wrote.

'It’s very dehumanising. The very thing that makes us human is our ability to create something beautiful, and to have this beauty be twisted into something that can potentially be ugly is a terrifying thought.' Picture: Instagram

After his threat of legal action, Wu contacted advocacy group for fashion workers, the Model Alliance, which referred her to a lawyer.

“For over a decade, we’ve heard from models who have walked into a store or browsed a company’s website only to find that their image has been heavily manipulated or otherwise used without their informed consent or compensation,” Model Alliance founder, Sara Ziff, told The Guardian.

“Unfortunately, Shereen’s experience is one of the many examples of why models need protections as workers.

“AI technology may be new, but the problem of models’ images being misused is not.”

Originally published as ‘Dehumanising’: Model Shereen Wu says her face was edited with AI to look white