⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: MILD SPOILERS

When the heist goes right: Meet the trio behind the biggest score of their lives in 'The Pickup'.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3/5 stars)

“The Pickup” serves as a pleasant diversion with its fairly engaging plot and commendable performances. The film is entirely a work of fiction. A notable concern, however, is the excessive crude language, particularly from Pete Davidson, which seemed unnecessary for its comedic aspirations.

#review #movies #streaming

13 December 2025

Another significant bit in the New Models podcast episode mentioned in the previous post was Allado-McDowell's mention of Edward Steichen's landmark photography exhibition The Family of Man (first shown in 1955) as an early example of a “multi-channel environment” in which, due to its dynamic installation, a viewer could in theory produce their own subjectivity via the way they chose to navigate the presentation. This led to further conversation on how media constructs physical space as well as information—the television gathering people in a living room. Naturally this led me to think about paintings as organizers of space, information, and subjectivity. There's room to push this further in my work, maybe experiment with a more tenuous approach to cohering my spatial recordings, see how far they can bend before they break. David Salle immediately comes to mind as a potential tangential relation.

11 December 2025

At one point in the episode of the New Models podcast with K. Allado-McDowell (from 2024), one of the hosts (which appears to be the artist Daniel Keller) mentions how despite human vision spanning 180 degrees, it doesn't distort like a lens, but rather it flattens. This was in the context of a conversation revolving around Allado-McDowell's theorization of what they term “neural media” and how one of its defining characteristics is that its content is hallucinated. Anyone reading this should go listen to the episode for a deeper unpacking of what they mean by this and how they think about hallucination with respect to the user/consumer and neural media itself. It's a fascinating subject.

But the eye's flattening implying hallucination is less interesting to me than the act of its flattening itself, especially as it relates to painting—what I've been working on recently seems like it is dealing with flatness more directly than any of my previous work. A new painting, titled Flat window (Wandsworth) (working title) is an exercise in compression; of planes that can perhaps be traced to my body in space while walking on a sidewalk through Wandsworth, a car passing by me on the road, ambient light changing as the sun went down, seeing a reflection of said car passing in the window of a flat I was walking by, and seeing beyond that reflection into a fragment of the interior of the flat. Painting as a node.

Simon Jacobs 223 pages Two Dollar Radio (2018)

Read this if you like: “Sorrow” by Catherine Gammon, “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, Bret Easton Ellis

tl;dr summary: Punk kids with a past navigate a world where people have vanished. 

See the book on Bookshop

Lately, I've been picking up a lot of books that float around the edges of realism, not quite pushing into full fantasy territory but take little forays outside of consensus reality. Palaces is definitely in-line with this trend. It has a similar floaty, deeply interior feel to Catherine Gammon's Sorrow, and the voice beautifully matches the story and helps to build the tension and pull the reader through. 

One of the most useful things about this kind of super-close, near stream-of-consciousness POV is that it leaves a lot of room for the reader to speculate about exactly what's going on and how much is happening inside the narrator's head versus what is actually some kind of supernatural force at play. Do weapons really just randomly appear in various places throughout the story, or is the narrator actually just a psychopath, or someone with multiple personalities? Whichever of these options you center as your truth alters how you see the other facts that are presented. If you believe the narrator about the gun just appearing, then things randomly appearing and disappearing in the mansions seems to reinforce this reality; if you don't believe him, his experience in the mansions just reinforces that he's probably crazy.

I think this is a completely intentional interplay set up by the author, and the lack of worldbuilding details is another piece in the puzzle, I think. No attempt is made to explain why everyone disappeared. It simply is, like the randomly appearing knife, and that leaves a lot of space for the reader to interpret things their own way. 

It was a smart move to use John and Joey as the reader’s anchors. Since they live on the fringes of society, it's more difficult to get a sense for whether society itself has broken down or if they just exist in a part of it where normal rules don't apply. Even the scenes in the city at the beginning have a surreal, fairy tale kind of feel. The only scenes that feel like they take place in consensus reality are the ones before they leave Richmond that are shown in flashbacks. I actually found these intrusions of relative normalcy refreshing, a kind of palate cleanser from the weird. 

From a craft standpoint, one detail that's done beautifully in Palaces is the weaving together of the past with the present. The control and slow release of information is very effective, and the past plotline helps to give the story a bit more narrative structure. The main plot thread is wandery and unfocused by design, so having the more straightforward past plot is helpful for grounding and balance. It also adds another source of narrative energy. The reader is as invested in learning about John and Joey's relationship as they are in the events in the story's present. 

You would think, in a book about a world where people suddenly disappear, that absence of people would be the main source of anxiety. One of the things I found interesting about Palaces, though, is that the opposite is true. Whenever it's just John and Joey, things are calm. It's when other people show up that things start to get weird and/or dangerous. That happens even before they take the mysterious empty commuter train to the abandoned mansions. The only interactions with individuals shown on-page are potential sources of violence: the punk he screams at during the show, the men in their squat, the man on fire fleeing the riots. For the most part, this holds true throughout their time out in the mansions, too.

The potential exception is the character of Vivian, a child they discover hiding in a closet during their exploration of one abandoned home. The intriguing thing about Vivian, for me, is John's reaction to her. He comes to see her as a potential threat more than as someone who needs to be protected. His paranoia about her motives is mirrored by another weapon appearance, and was one of the main places I leaned toward reading John as someone with schizophrenia or a similar mental illness. Here again, though, like elsewhere in the story, it’s left open to the reader’s interpretation. Usually I’m the kind of reader who likes more grounding and clarity in my settings, but in this case I appreciated how the inherent ambiguity and lack of tangible details actually added to the story’s energy and gave it forward momentum instead of bogging it down, like that kind of confusion often does.

Palaces is one of those books where I definitely felt like it was smarter than me while I was reading it, which always makes me feel a little self-conscious about reviewing it. I think a lot of things would become much clearer after a second read and sitting with the story for a minute. The only place I felt actually confused on the first read was the ending. I don't want to give too many details for the risk of spoilers, but it takes a very sudden shift that I couldn't completely make sense of. Despite this, I enjoyed the journey through Palaces, and the fact that it didn't try to over-explain things, even if that did leave me with some lingering questions. 

 

See similar posts:

#BookReviews #LiteraryFiction #GenreBlurring

Un año de cambios e impulsos transformadores en abertura ascendente para EFÍMERE

El año 2025 que ahora finaliza, y en el que presentamos el nuevo número de la revista EFÍMERE, ha resultado ser un año muy intenso, vitalmente, para todas las personas que conformamos el proyecto de la revista EFÍMERE. Queremos compartir con quienes leen esta editorial las consecuencias de este año tan impactante y su vinculación con el presente y el futuro de EFÍMERE.

El año 2024, publicamos nuestro primer volumen de EFÍMERE, naciendo con una vocación de servicio evidente y con un objetivo todavía más claro: permanecer al servicio de la sociedad que nos alberga y que nos vio nacer, hacerlo con dignidad y ética, evitando caer en malos usos, así como mantener nuestra revista siempre como revista diamante, es decir, que no cobra tasas de publicación ni de lectura y que ofrece todo su contenido en abierto.

Por todo ello, era imprescindible nacer sentando las bases de nuestro origen. Por lo que el primer número estuvo dedicado al estudio de las estéticas de la cultura valenciana. Era necesario afirmar nuestro compromiso con la sociedad local, para desarrollar nuestra vocación universal, partiendo de este punto como declaración de intenciones.

Ha sido un año intenso y repleto de acontecimientos para los impulsores de la revista, que vino además azotado por la terrible DANA sufrida en nuestro origen y sede, Valencia. Este suceso supuso una tragedia colectiva indescriptible que nos empujó también a tomar decisiones, que a día de hoy se han demostrado profundamente acertadas. En primer lugar, impulsar el monográfico que ahora publicamos en este volumen 2 de 2025. En segundo lugar, desarrollar un proyecto de investigación I+D que ha sido finalmente financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades dentro de los Proyectos de Generación de Conocimiento 2024: “ANDANA. Emergencias artísticas para la participación e inclusión de las expresiones infantiles en situaciones de crisis” (PID2024-158826OB-I00). Un proyecto que se inicia justo ahora, a finales de 2025, para alargarse hasta el verano de 2028, y que cuenta como investigadores principales con la doctora Amparo Alonso-Sanz y el doctor Ricard Ramon, que también firmamos en conjunto esta misma editorial del volumen 2 de la revista EFÍMERE.

Todo ello no hubiese sido posible sin una evolución que nos ha llevado a la construcción de nuevas estructuras de investigación durante este año, como el grupo de investigación ABERTURA, coordinado por Amparo Alonso Sanz y que ahora se suma al proyecto de la revista EFÍMERE, reforzando su papel y su sentido. La revista EFÍMERE nació como consecuencia de un maravilloso proyecto, Efímere, Unidad Mixta de Investigación UV+UPV, suscrita por convenio que duró entre 2019 y 2023, entre las dos principales universidades públicas valencianas, coordinado por Ricard Ramon. Ahora la revista EFÍMERE continúa bajo el auspicio del grupo de investigación de la Universitat de València, ABERTURA. Pero nuestra apuesta de futuro es reactivar de nuevo el proyecto Efímere de Unidad Mixta de Investigación, incorporando nuevos equipos y grupos de investigación con los que ya hemos establecido lazos de trabajo muy intensos, y seguir así con nuestra política de integración y extensión de un instrumento al servicio del pensamiento artístico como es la revista EFÍMERE.

Nuestro compromiso es firme y apuesta con ambición ética por la continuidad y refuerzo de este proyecto, y con planes para el nuevo monográfico de 2026, con una nueva llamada de trabajos centrada en explorar y profundizar en la Investigación Educativa Basada en las Artes, partiendo de la idea de su autonomía como metodología de investigación independiente frente a otros métodos como la investigación cualitativa o cuantitativa. Invitamos a la comunidad investigadora en este ámbito a empezar a preparar y enviar sus artículos para el volumen 3 de 2026.

Un contexto de catástrofes, un marco para la mentira y una revelación de verdades desde la ficción artística

En este monográfico de la revista EFÍMERE, hemos propuesto a personas investigadoras que escriban y reflexionen sobre las relaciones que, desde el arte, las prácticas artísticas y visuales y la educación artística, existen entre aquello que llamamos ficción, o poéticas de ficción, frente a lo que pretende presentarse como registro de verdad y esconde en realidad mil mentiras. 

Nuestra revista está ubicada en Valencia, que en octubre de 2024 sufrió una devastadora catástrofe de inundaciones, provocada por la crisis climática imparable, de la que la ciencia lleva años advirtiendo. La DANA ha dejado cientos de muertos y una responsabilidad política clara del gobierno de la Generalitat Valenciana, por la falta de actuaciones en la prevención adecuada del riesgo inminente. Pero también existe una responsabilidad política general mundial en la inacción para mitigar los efectos del cambio climático. Y una responsabilidad de los negacionistas de la verdad que prefieren creer en la imagen ficticia de un mundo que no existe, para evitar ver alterada su falsa seguridad y agarrarse a una imagen registral, no de un mundo ficticio, sino falso, mentiroso, que ya se ha desvanecido. Una imagen que pretende seguir construyéndose con el apoyo del supuesto valor certificador de la imagen, para crear una mentira aceptable que encubra la verdad.

Esta tragedia ha supuesto la emergencia, entre los restos del barro, de las ratas de la mentira, en un mundo donde el valor de esas falsedades se construye y afianza por la necesidad de muchas personas de evitar afrontar la verdad. Así se produce una plaga de “creadores de contenido”, básicamente, creadores de imágenes necrológicas enmascaradas en una verdad inexistente, es decir, en una falacia. Pero también los medios tradicionales se han abocado a tratar de fortalecer esta quimera de que la crisis climática no existe, con argumentos descabellados, pero construidos con apoyo de los medios registrales a los que se atribuye el papel de certificación, que asociamos a la verdad.

Por contra, no solo los miles de estudios científicos, sino especialmente el arte, la fotografía artística, el cine, las series de ficción y numerosos proyectos artísticos, desde instalaciones o exposiciones a performances, nos están mostrando la verdad, desde una narrativa de ficción, que es necesariamente educativa.

Por ello, y por la urgencia derivada de esta situación, que ahora nos ha tocado vivir a nosotros en primera persona, pero que mañana afectará, sin duda alguna, a otros pueblos, ciudades y personas, nos vimos en la obligación de proponer el desarrollo de investigaciones que, desde nuestro campo de conocimiento, el arte y la educación artística, tratara de responder a una de las problemáticas más perniciosas para nuestro futuro y nuestra vida. El uso y la creación de una imagen de verdad construida sobre un muro de mentiras, aprovechando la falsa idea de que la imagen es un registro notarial del mundo, desvirtuando su verdadero valor y concepto. Así como afianzar el valor de las artes en la construcción de la verdad desde la ficción.

Nos hallamos ante una problemática vinculada al Antropoceno, cuyos efectos multiplicadores parten de lo humano y sus acciones, pero van más allá de las afecciones al ser humano, incluyendo el daño a otras especies vegetales y animales, a los objetos y lo matérico. Una situación que nos parece irreversible y que produce hastío, rendimiento, dejadez, indefensión y sumisión, incluso antes siquiera de haber intentado iniciar la lucha. Un sometimiento generalizado en sociedades mal educadas para sobrevivir sometidas al poder ajeno, que se enriquece a costa de un extractivismo voraz, a su vez alimentado por un consumo desmedido de esas mismas masas autómatas cuyas conciencias han sido retorcidas y enajenadas para tal fin lucrativo.

Afrontamos una ceguera colmada de imaginarios raudos, voraces, inmediatos, producidos y reproducidos en bucle, cocinados y fagocitados para ser vomitados o regurgitados en un hambre insaciable de más visualidades que aletarga las mentes y cuidados mientras la vida pasa a un lado. Un tiempo de supuesta abundancia y a su vez máxima deuda, que permite una apariencia de riqueza sostenida como escaparate y que esconde una pobreza máxima, especialmente en valores.

También nos encontramos en una era tecnologizada, dominada por la aparición de la inteligencia artificial, que bien podría ser reemplazada a tiempo por una era ecoética en la que las prácticas artísticas y educativas inspiraran a la sociedad a valorar y proteger los ecosistemas como parte de su identidad cultural, conectando humanidad con naturaleza y tecnología. El arte y la educación tienen la capacidad de promover la sostenibilidad, el respeto y la observación atenta del entorno; pueden transformar profundamente las mentalidades, pero especialmente tienen la capacidad de alterar las prácticas en favor de un equilibrio ambiental y social. Un eco que debe reverberar en referencia a la ecología, a la economía y a la ética integrada en relación con los ecosistemas que habitamos.

La DANA, esa Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos, llega a Valencia como un torrente indomable, un pulso de cielo y agua que barre el terreno, rompe barreras, arranca las raíces y, finalmente, transforma el paisaje. Esa fuerza imparable es la necesaria para una educación artística transformadora que se disuelva en cauces improvisados, que haga ceder las murallas de lo cotidiano, que vuelva vulnerables a las mentiras ante la fuerza impredecible de su tormenta crítica. Que la corriente de consciencia se despliegue en la sociedad con la fuerza de una tormenta erosionadora y modeladora. Que esta otra DANA, la educativa y artística, disuelva las capas superficiales de mentiras y deje ver las capas ocultas, revelando estructuras invisibles, enfrentando los medios de comunicación que usan las estrategias visuales y audiovisuales, nuestras propias armas artísticas, esas de las que se ha desprovisto a la sociedad mediante un analfabetismo audiovisual premeditado.

Buscábamos investigaciones que se centrasen en el análisis del papel de las ficciones visuales como fuente de verdad, frente a las mentiras visuales como fuente de supuesta verdad, que generan un uso de las imágenes retorcido y pernicioso; sobre el que el papel de la educación artística debe construir un muro de contención y defensa, mediante el análisis serio y riguroso, pero especialmente mediante el diseño de acciones que permitan la construcción y el uso consciente de las imágenes, desde lo que habitualmente se asocia a lo que llamamos ficción.

Aprender a usar y a crear las imágenes y el valor de verdad que estas prácticas artísticas tienen en esencia es un reto pedagógico fundamental y urgente. Esto permite, además de prevenir el falso discurso de la mentira de las imágenes necrológicas registrales, capacitar a las personas a profundizar en su pensamiento y en la búsqueda de la verdad a través del pensamiento visual poético. Esto permite ser capaces de comprender que a la verdad no se llega a través de una supuesta mirada registral, como queda demostrado una y mil veces gracias al arte, sino en la profundización de un pensamiento complejo como el que se articula a través de las artes.

Ricard Ramon y Amparo Alonso-Sanz Texto original publicado en el v. 2 de la revista EFÍMERE como editorial.

#investigación #publicaciones

I officially moved out of my childhood home when I was 19. I tried subletting and couch surfing at 18, but it never lasted long. Living on my own was never financially viable and I needed a roommate just to afford a one bedroom in Boston. My rent was $800 a month. That year my net income was $24,000. At the time, it felt like success. Up until then I’d been working part-time for $12 an hour. Now I was making $15 an hour, full-time, with benefits, at the world’s most admired brand: Apple. After covering my basic expenses, I had about $150 a week left over.

Moving into any apartment required first and last month’s rent plus a security deposit upfront. Thousands of dollars I had to come up with just about every year to stay housed and I was never lucky enough to win the affordable housing lottery. Each move cost about $2,500, so I set aside at least $50 a week from what little I had left, knowing I’d eventually need it for my next inevitable move. I tried to save, but unexpected expenses constantly knocked me off balance. When my first 12-month lease ended and it was time to move again, I was financially drained.

When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, can’t afford food, and you’re not “poor enough” for food stamps, the only way left to feed yourself that I found was to open a credit card. How naive I was. Credit, for people with low income, creates a false sense of stability. First it’s just for essentials. Then one day you treat yourself and it becomes a slippery slope into financial ruin.

Five years of that cycle — move, save, struggle — left me with $25,000 in credit card debt. Apple gave me 3–5% annual merit increases and my net income eventually rose to $30,000, but none of it mattered. Once you’re trapped in high interest debt, you need a miracle to get out.

Fast-forward several years to today. I’m 30, I have no debt, I own a home, I drive a new car, and I live a financially comfortable life. And yet, when I look around at my peers, I feel self conscious about my position. So many people I know are still stuck in that same cycle I remember so vividly — move, save, struggle. There has to be a better way for society to function. One that lifts those with little supported by those who already have more than they need.

Because let’s be honest: yes, I worked hard to get where I am today. Some would say that’s meritocracy rewarding me. But I know the truth — what I experienced over the past ten years was, in many ways, simply luck.

That’s what motivated me to become a Democratic Socialist. Because my story didn’t have to be this hard and neither do the stories of my peers. With stronger social programs, my early adulthood could've looked different. Affordable housing, real tenant protections, universal healthcare, guaranteed food assistance, even something as simple as rent stabilization or public broadband. These are socialist ideas that would've given me stability instead of uncertainty. They would've kept me out of debt, out of constant crisis, and allowed me to build a future without gambling my well-being on luck.

I want that for all who share this struggle now. Not a world where survival depends on never slipping up, but one where we all start on steadier ground. Because if I’m being honest, the reason I “made it” isn’t that I’m exceptional. It’s that I got lucky in a system that constantly fails people who work just as hard as I did.

A better world is possible and we owe it to each other to build it. 🌹

There have been full moons every day, and they’ve been big!!

Can’t think of a better sign to start this year honestly. 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌝🌝

My cheeks were rosened following a trip to the barn for some firewood

That’s all it took in this ice cold weather

Today is the final day spent on the yellow sofa watching some film, because tomorrow I’m going back to work.

Can’t say I’m looking forward to it a lot honestly, but I’ve made a new friend who I’m rather keen to talk to, and I’ve been cleaning up some code, I’ll continue with that too.

And I’ll listen to that king diamond album, the one I’m fire and flames over, the one about the tragic fate of the residents of the Loa House. Voodoo.

You used to be so beautiful, but now you’re gonna die!!

🤘🤘

This evening we will have wine and cheese with the neighbours. Isn’t that something?

This level of life-quality was not attainable to Harald Bluetooth, Gustav I of sweden, or even Henry VII of England, because either they had a bad hip or severe tooth pains.

And i bet you they were flea riddled

It’s true what Macka B sings about; health is wealth.

Anyway if this wasn’t now but thousands of years ago, out something, then i would be some pride of Selûne

That’s a beast parting thought.

Night-vision bathed the Oval Office in eerie green as we fast-roped from the V-280. “Eagle One to Nest—HVT secured,” I hissed, pressing my HK416 into the president's quivering jowls. His silk pajamas reeked of cognac and treason. “You can't... I own the Joint Chiefs!” The window shattered—our exfil signal. Ramirez tossed the flex-cuffs. “Tell it to the Hague, Mr. President.” The MH-60 roared overhead as we dragged him through rose bushes. Somewhere, a champagne glass toppled on the Resolute Desk. Typical. The Revolution smelled like cordite and fertilizer tonight.

#Scratch

Abîme du rêve est le neuvième et dernier roman appartenant au cycle romanesque Le Rêve du Démiurge de Francis Berthelot.

Le récit met en scène Ferenc Bohr, auteur fictif et avatar de Francis Berthelot lui-même, qui cherche l’inspiration pour le neuvième et dernier volume de son cycle romanesque Le Rêve arborescent, dont les titres des huit premiers volumes sont des versions légèrement déformées de ceux du Rêve du Démiurge. Alors qu’il bute sur l’écriture et que la réédition de son cycle est sous la menace suite au rachat de son éditeur par un grand groupe, ses personnages quittent les Limbes de la Fiction et commencent à prendre vie autour de lui.

A travers ce récit, Francis Berthelot organise le procès de sa propre œuvre romanesque. Il en dévoile les intentions, les obsessions conscientes ou inconscients, il en met en avant les faiblesses pour répondre aux critiques, et en reconnait les angles morts. Il défend le glissement progressif du cycle vers le fantastique et sa volonté de franchir les frontières entre les genres.

L’auteur nous parle également de la responsabilité qu’il peut ressentir vis-à-vis des personnages qu’il a créés et qu’il a souvent fait souffrir. Il évoque les liens parfois ambigus qu’il a tissés avec eux.

J’ai toujours aimé les romans qui parlent d’écriture quand ils ne se contentent pas de mettre en scène un auteur en posture d’écrivain. Francis Berthelot le fait ici avec beaucoup de talent, en proposant une mise en abîme particulièrement habile et en réunissant ses personnages pour un dernier volume intelligent, puissant, et émouvant. Il conclut ainsi magistralement un cycle romanesque de très grande qualité.

I got to talk with a friend who has MDD, and I was essentially watching her actively fight with herself mentally. It’s such a fascinatingly painful condition, but I’m glad because I realized how much I need to explain to E.

Stay entertained thanks to our Weekly Tracker giving you next week's Anticipated Movies & Shows, Most Watched & Returning Favorites, and Shows Changes & Popular Trailers.

Anticipated Movies

• ☆ Greenland 2: Migration
• People We Meet on Vacation
• OBEX
• Dead Man's Wire
• Primate
• ALL YOU NEED IS KILL

Anticipated Shows

• There Was a Cute Girl in the Hero's Party, so I Tried Confessing to Her
• THE DARWIN INCIDENT
• Best Medicine
• SHIBOYUGI: Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table
• Noble Reincarnation
• Can You Keep a Secret?
• Harlan Coben's Final Twist
• Girl Taken
• ☆ HIS & HERS
• The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be Wife
• Hell Mode: The Hardcore Gamer Dominates in Another World with Garbage Balancing
• Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord
• Dead Account
• You and I Are Polar Opposites

Returing Favorites

• When Calls the Heart — Season 13
• Golden Kamuy — Season 5
• Raw — Season 34
• The Daily Show — Season 31
• The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon — Season 14
• Jimmy Kimmel Live! — Season 25
• Will Trent — Season 4
• ☆ The Rookie — Season 8
• Beast Games — Season 2
• Grantchester — Season 10
• The Masked Singer — Season 14
• A Thousand Blows — Season 2
• The Pitt — Season 2
• The Traitors — Season 4
• The Hunting Party — Season 2
• Alpha Males — Season 4
• Father Brown — Season 13
• Fire Force — Season 3
• 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown — Season 29
• TRIGUN STAMPEDE — Season 2
• Primal — Season 3
• Hell's Paradise — Season 2
• Call the Midwife — Season 15
• Miss Scarlet — Season 6

Trending Shows Status Changes

• Stranger Things — Returning Series → Ended
• Run Away — Returning Series → Ended

Most Watched Movies this Week

• = Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
• new Zootopia 2
• -1 Now You See Me: Now You Don't
• +4 Eternity
• new Wicked: For Good
• -3 The Running Man
• new One Battle After Another
• new Nuremberg
• = Avatar: Fire and Ash
• new Bugonia

Most Watched Shows this Week

• +1 Stranger Things
• +1 Fallout
• +1 Landman
• -3 Pluribus
• = Mayor of Kingstown
• = Percy Jackson and the Olympians
• +3 Robin Hood
• new The Simpsons
• new One-Punch Man
• -3 IT: Welcome to Derry

Popular Trailers

• The Housemaid is.... deliciously unhinged — The Housemaid
• Don’t look back. — Greenland 2: Migration
• Bestie Core — The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants
• Tickets On Sale — Avatar: Fire and Ash
• 1 min Promo [Subtitled] — Back to the Past
• Happy New Fear! — 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
• Kaguya-sama: Love is War -Stairway to Adulthood- Official Trailer [Subtitled] — Kaguya-sama: Love Is War
• Only in Theaters December 18, 2026 — Avengers: Doomsday
• Stranger Things 5 Finale Trailer — Stranger Things
• Fear — Primate

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Hi, I'm Kevin 👋. I make apps and I love watching movies and TV shows. If you like what I'm doing, you can buy one of my apps, download and subscribe to Rippple for Trakt or just buy me a ko-fi ☕️.

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JOURNAL 4 janvier 2026

On retrouve la maison, notre cadre etc. On a quitté mamie et papi avec regrets. Ça pince le cœur de quitter des gens qui vous aiment pour ce que vous êtes sans rien demander d'autre, qui nous prennent comme ça sans question, d'une affection immédiate simple et sans condition. On est malheureuses d'être si loin. S'il leur arrivait quelque chose et ça n'est pas exclu on ne pourrait pas être à leurs côtés immédiatement. On arriverait trop tard et ça nous attriste énormément. On a insisté pour qu’ils prennent un téléphone mais ils refusent absolument ils tiennent à leur isolement comme à un rempart contre un monde qu’ils craignent comme n'apportant que vacarme, agitation et malheur.

Notre descente avait quelque chose de cinématographique : nos lampes frontales éclairant nos pas à quelques mètres dans un rideau de neige sans interruption après une demi heure de notre départ on ne risquait pas de quitter la route elle est entièrement bordée d'arbres et heureusement parce que par moments on avait l'impression de ne pas progresser... Nous étions dans un brouillard épais de neige, nous avons bien marché et quand soudain nous avons vu les lumières du konbini devant nous, nous avions 10 minutes d’avance sur l’horaire que nous avions calculé. C’est drôle comme ces expériences ont quelque chose d’exaltant, on arrive avec l'impression d’avoir accompli un exploit, d'avoir été à la hauteur du challenge, comme après un combat.

On va maintenant prendre un bain, ça vaut pas un onsen mais on l'a bien mérité.

tal vez de eso mejor no hablar hacerse el tonto y en el despiste con esa tranquilidad que atraviesa muros conservar la paz interior / la que nos queda

Stand in front of your phone camera, and within seconds, you're wearing a dozen different lipstick shades you've never touched. Tilt your head, and the eyeglasses perched on your digital nose move with you, adjusting for the light filtering through the acetate frames. Ask a conversational AI what to wear to a summer wedding, and it curates an entire outfit based on your past purchases, body measurements, and the weather forecast for that day.

This isn't science fiction. It's Tuesday afternoon shopping in 2025, where artificial intelligence has transformed the fashion and lifestyle industries from guesswork into a precision science. The global AI in fashion market, valued at USD 1.99 billion in 2024, is projected to explode to USD 39.71 billion by 2033, growing at a staggering 39.43% compound annual growth rate. The beauty industry is experiencing a similar revolution, with AI's market presence expected to reach $16.3 billion by 2026, growing at 25.4% annually since 2021.

But as these digital advisors become more sophisticated, they're raising urgent questions about user experience design, data privacy, algorithmic bias, and consumer trust. Which sectors will monetise these technologies first? What safeguards are essential to prevent these tools from reinforcing harmful stereotypes or invading privacy? And perhaps most critically, as AI learns to predict our preferences with uncanny accuracy, are we being served or manipulated?

The Personalisation Arms Race

The transformation began quietly. Stitch Fix, the online personal styling service, has been using machine learning since its inception, employing what it calls a human-AI collaboration model. The system doesn't make recommendations directly to customers. Instead, it arms human stylists with data-driven insights, analysing billions of data points on clients' fit and style preferences. According to the company, AI and machine learning are “pervasive in every facet of the function of the company, whether that be merchandising, marketing, finance, obviously our core product of recommendations and styling.”

In 2025, Stitch Fix unveiled Vision, a generative AI-powered tool that creates personalised images showing clients styled in fresh outfits. Now in beta, Vision generates imagery of a client's likeness in shoppable outfit recommendations based on their style profile and the latest fashion trends. The company also launched an AI Style Assistant that engages in dialogue with clients, using the extensive data already known about them. The more it's used, the smarter it gets, learning from every interaction, every thumbs-up and thumbs-down in the Style Shuffle feature, and even images customers engage with on platforms like Pinterest.

But Stitch Fix is hardly alone. The beauty sector has emerged as the testing ground for AI personalisation's most ambitious experiments. L'Oréal's acquisition of ModiFace in 2018 marked the first time the cosmetics giant had purchased a tech company, signalling a fundamental shift in how beauty brands view technology. ModiFace's augmented reality and AI capabilities, created since 2007, now serve nearly a billion consumers worldwide. According to L'Oréal's 2024 Annual Innovation Report, the ModiFace system allows customers to virtually sample hundreds of lipstick shades with 98% colour accuracy.

The business results have been extraordinary. L'Oréal's ModiFace virtual try-on technology has tripled e-commerce conversion rates, whilst attracting more than 40 million users in the past year alone. This success is backed by a formidable infrastructure: 4,000 scientists in 20 research centres worldwide, 6,300 digital talents, and 3,200 tech and data experts.

Sephora's journey illustrates the patience required to perfect these technologies. Before launching Sephora Virtual Artist in partnership with ModiFace, the retailer experimented with augmented reality for five years. By 2018, within two years of launching, Sephora Virtual Artist saw over 200 million shades tried on and over 8.5 million visits to the feature. The platform's AI algorithms analyse facial geometry, identifying features such as lips, eyes, and cheekbones to apply digital makeup with remarkable precision, adjusting for skin tone and ambient lighting to enhance realism.

The impact on Sephora's bottom line has been substantial. The AI-powered Virtual Artist has driven a 25% increase in add-to-basket rates and a 35% rise in conversions for online makeup sales. Perhaps more telling, the AR experience increased average app session times from 3 minutes to 12 minutes, with virtual try-ons growing nearly tenfold year-over-year. The company has also cut out-of-stock events by around 30%, reduced inventory holding costs by 20%, and decreased markdown rates on excess stock by 15%.

The Eyewear Advantage

Whilst beauty brands have captured headlines, the eyewear industry has quietly positioned itself as a formidable player in the AI personalisation space. The global eyewear market, valued at USD 200.46 billion in 2024, is projected to reach USD 335.90 billion by 2030, growing at 8.6% annually. But it's the integration of AI and AR technologies that's transforming the sector's growth trajectory.

Warby Parker's co-founder and co-CEO Dave Gilboa explained that virtual try-on has been part of the company's long-term plan since it launched. “We've been patiently waiting for technology to catch up with our vision for what that experience could look like,” he noted. Co-founder Neil Blumenthal emphasised they didn't want their use of AR to feel gimmicky: “Until we were able to have a one-to-one reference and have our glasses be true to scale and fit properly on somebody's face, none of the tools available were functional.”

The breakthrough came when Apple released its iPhone X with its TrueDepth camera. Warby Parker developed its virtual try-on feature using Apple's ARKit, creating what the company describes as a “placement algorithm that mimics the real-life process of placing a pair of frames on your face, taking into account how your unique facial features interact with the frame.” The glasses stay fixed in place if you tilt your head and even show how light filters through acetate frames.

The strategic benefits extend beyond customer experience. Warby Parker already offered a home try-on programme, but the AR feature delivers a more immediate experience whilst potentially saving the retailer time and money associated with logistics. More significantly, offering a true-to-life virtual try-on option minimises the number of frames being shipped to consumers and reduces returns.

The eyewear sector's e-commerce segment is experiencing explosive growth, predicted to witness a CAGR of 13.4% from 2025 to 2033. In July 2025, Lenskart secured USD 600 million in funding to expand its AI-powered online eyewear platform and retail presence in Southeast Asia. In February 2025, EssilorLuxottica unveiled its advanced AI-driven lens customisation platform, enhancing accuracy by up to 30% and reducing production time by 30%.

The smart eyewear segment represents an even more ambitious frontier. Meta's $3.5 billion investment in EssilorLuxottica illustrates the power of joint venture models. Ray-Ban Meta glasses were the best-selling product in 60% of Ray-Ban's EMEA stores in Q3 2024. Global shipments of smart glasses rose 110% year-over-year in the first half of 2025, with AI-enabled models representing 78% of shipments, up from 46% the same period the year prior. Analysts expect sales to quadruple in 2026.

The Conversational Commerce Revolution

The next phase of AI personalisation moves beyond visual try-ons to conversational shopping assistants that fundamentally alter the customer relationship. The AI Shopping Assistant Market, valued at USD 3.65 billion in 2024, is expected to reach USD 24.90 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 27.22%. Fashion and apparel retailers are expected to witness the fastest growth rate during this period.

Consumer expectations are driving this shift. According to a 2024 Coveo survey, 72% of consumers now expect their online shopping experiences to evolve with the adoption of generative AI. A December 2024 Capgemini study found that 52% of worldwide consumers prefer chatbots and virtual agents because of their easy access, convenience, responsiveness, and speed.

The numbers tell a dramatic story. Between November 1 and December 31, 2024, traffic from generative AI sources increased by 1,300% year-over-year. On Cyber Monday alone, generative AI traffic was up 1,950% year-over-year. According to a 2025 Adobe survey, 39% of consumers use generative AI for online shopping, with 53% planning to do so this year.

One global lifestyle player developed a gen-AI-powered shopping assistant and saw its conversion rates increase by as much as 20%. Many providers have demonstrated increases in customer basket sizes and higher margins from cross-selling. For instance, 35up, a platform that optimises product pairings for merchants, reported an 11% increase in basket size and a 40% rise in cross-selling margins.

Natural Language Processing dominated the AI shopping assistant technology segment with 45.6% market share in 2024, reflecting its importance in enabling conversational product search, personalised guidance, and intent-based shopping experiences. According to a recent study by IMRG and Hive, three-quarters of fashion retailers plan to invest in AI over the next 24 months.

These conversational systems work by combining multiple AI technologies. They use natural language understanding to interpret customer queries, drawing on vast product databases and customer history to generate contextually relevant responses. The most sophisticated implementations can understand nuance—distinguishing between “I need something professional for an interview” and “I want something smart-casual for a networking event”—and factor in variables like climate, occasion, personal style preferences, and budget constraints simultaneously.

The personalisation extends beyond product recommendations. Advanced conversational AI can remember past interactions, track evolving preferences, and even anticipate needs based on seasonal changes or life events mentioned in previous conversations. Some systems integrate with calendar applications to suggest outfits for upcoming events, or connect with weather APIs to recommend appropriate clothing based on forecasted conditions.

However, these capabilities introduce new complexities around data integration and privacy. Each additional data source—calendar access, location information, purchase history from multiple retailers—creates another potential vulnerability. The systems must balance comprehensive personalisation with respect for data boundaries, offering users granular control over what information the AI can access.

The potential value is staggering. If adoption follows a trajectory similar to mobile commerce in the 2010s, agentic commerce could reach $3-5 trillion in value by 2030. But this shift comes with risks. As shoppers move from apps and websites to AI agents, fashion players risk losing ownership of the consumer relationship. Going forward, brands may need to pay for premium integration and placement in agent recommendations, fundamentally altering the economics of digital retail.

Yet even as these technologies promise unprecedented personalisation and convenience, they collide with a fundamental problem that threatens to derail the entire revolution: consumer trust.

The Trust Deficit

For all their sophistication, AI personalisation tools face a fundamental challenge. The technology's effectiveness depends on collecting and analysing vast amounts of personal data, but consumers are increasingly wary of how companies use their information. A Pew Research study found that 79% of consumers are concerned about how companies use their data, fuelling demand for greater transparency and control over personal information.

The beauty industry faces particular scrutiny. A survey conducted by FIT CFMM found that over 60% of respondents are aware of biases in AI-driven beauty tools, and nearly a quarter have personally experienced them. These biases aren't merely inconvenient; they can reinforce harmful stereotypes and exclude entire demographic groups from personalised recommendations.

The manifestations of bias are diverse and often subtle. Recommendation algorithms might consistently suggest lighter foundation shades to users with darker skin tones, or fail to recognise facial features accurately across different ethnic backgrounds. Virtual try-on tools trained primarily on Caucasian faces may render makeup incorrectly on Asian or African facial structures. Size recommendation systems might perpetuate narrow beauty standards by suggesting smaller sizes regardless of actual body measurements.

These problems often emerge from the intersection of insufficient training data and unconscious human bias in algorithm design. When development teams lack diversity, they may not recognise edge cases that affect underrepresented groups. When training datasets over-sample certain demographics, the resulting AI inherits and amplifies those imbalances.

In many cases, the designers of algorithms do not have ill intentions. Rather, the design and the data can lead artificial intelligence to unwittingly reinforce bias. The root cause usually goes to input data, tainted with prejudice, extremism, harassment, or discrimination. Combined with a careless approach to privacy and aggressive advertising practices, data can become the raw material for a terrible customer experience.

AI systems may inherit biases from their training data, resulting in inaccurate or unfair outcomes, particularly in areas like sizing, representation, and product recommendations. Most training datasets aren't curated for diversity. Instead, they reflect cultural, gender, and racial biases embedded in online images. The AI doesn't know better; it just replicates what it sees most.

The Spanish fashion retailer Mango provides a cautionary tale. The company rolled out AI-generated campaigns promoting its teen lines, but its models were uniformly hyper-perfect: all fair-skinned, full-lipped, and fat-free. Diversity and inclusivity didn't appear to be priorities, illustrating how AI can amplify existing industry biases when not carefully monitored.

Consumer awareness of these issues is growing rapidly. A 2024 survey found that 68% of consumers would switch brands if they discovered AI-driven personalisation was systematically biased. The reputational risk extends beyond immediate sales impact; brands associated with discriminatory AI face lasting damage to their market position and social licence to operate.

Building Better Systems

The good news is that the industry increasingly recognises these challenges and is developing solutions. USC computer science researchers proposed a novel approach to mitigate bias in machine learning model training, published at the 2024 AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. The researchers used “quality-diversity algorithms” to create diverse synthetic datasets that strategically “plug the gaps” in real-world training data. Using this method, the team generated a diverse dataset of around 50,000 images in 17 hours, testing on measures of diversity including skin tone, gender presentation, age, and hair length.

Various approaches have been proposed to mitigate bias, including dataset augmentation, bias-aware algorithms that consider different types of bias, and user feedback mechanisms to help identify and correct biases. Priti Mhatre from Hogarth advocates for bias mitigation techniques like adversarial debiasing, “where two models, one as a classifier to predict the task and the other as an adversary to exploit a bias, can help programme the bias out of the AI-generated content.”

Technical approaches include using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to increase demographic diversity by transferring multiple demographic attributes to images in a biased set. Pre-processing techniques like Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) and Data Augmentation have shown promise. In-processing methods modify AI training processes to incorporate fairness constraints, with adversarial debiasing training AI models to minimise both classification errors and biases simultaneously.

Beyond technical fixes, organisational approaches matter equally. Leading companies now conduct regular fairness audits of their AI systems, testing outputs across demographic categories to identify disparate impacts. Some have established external advisory boards comprising ethicists, social scientists, and community representatives to provide oversight on AI development and deployment.

The most effective solutions combine technical and human elements. Automated bias detection tools can flag potential issues, but human judgment remains essential for understanding context and determining appropriate responses. Some organisations employ “red teams” whose explicit role is to probe AI systems for failure modes, including bias manifestations across different user populations.

Hogarth has observed that “having truly diverse talent across AI-practitioners, developers and data scientists naturally neutralises the biases stemming from model training, algorithms and user prompting.” This points to a crucial insight: technical solutions alone aren't sufficient. The teams building these systems must reflect the diversity of their intended users.

Industry leaders are also investing in bias mitigation infrastructure. This includes creating standardised benchmarks for measuring fairness across demographic categories, developing shared datasets that represent diverse populations, and establishing best practices for inclusive AI development. Several consortia have emerged to coordinate these efforts across companies, recognising that systemic bias requires collective action to address effectively.

The Privacy-Personalisation Paradox

Handling customer data raises significant privacy issues, making consumers wary of how their information is used and stored. Fashion retailers must comply with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States, which dictate how personal data must be handled.

The GDPR sets clear rules for using personal data in AI systems, including transparency requirements, data minimisation, and the right to opt-out of automated decisions. The CCPA grants consumers similar rights, including the right to know what data is collected, the right to delete personal data, and the right to opt out of data sales. However, consent requirements differ: the CCPA requires opt-out consent for the sale of personal data, whilst the GDPR requires explicit opt-in consent for processing personal data.

The penalties for non-compliance are severe. The CCPA is enforced by the California Attorney General with a maximum fine of $7,500 per violation. The GDPR is enforced by national data protection authorities with a maximum fine of up to 4% of global annual revenue or €20 million, whichever is higher.

The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), passed in 2020, amended the CCPA in several important ways, creating the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) and giving it authority to issue regulations concerning consumers' rights to access information about and opt out of automated decisions. The future promises even greater scrutiny, with heightened focus on AI and machine learning technologies, enhanced consumer rights, and stricter enforcement.

The practical challenges of compliance are substantial. AI personalisation systems often involve complex data flows across multiple systems, third-party integrations, and international boundaries. Each data transfer represents a potential compliance risk, requiring careful mapping and management. Companies must maintain detailed records of what data is collected, how it's used, where it's stored, and who has access—requirements that can be difficult to satisfy when dealing with sophisticated AI systems that make autonomous decisions about data usage.

Moreover, the “right to explanation” provisions in GDPR create particular challenges for AI systems. If a customer asks why they received a particular recommendation, companies must be able to provide a meaningful explanation—difficult when recommendations emerge from complex neural networks processing thousands of variables. This has driven development of more interpretable AI architectures and better logging of decision-making processes.

Forward-thinking brands are addressing privacy concerns by shifting from third-party cookies to zero-party and first-party data strategies. Zero-party data, first introduced by Forrester Research, refers to “data that a customer intentionally and proactively shares with a brand.” What makes it unique is the intentional sharing. Customers know exactly what they're giving you and expect value in return, creating a transparent exchange that delivers accurate insights whilst building genuine trust.

First-party data, by contrast, is the behavioural and transactional information collected directly as customers interact with a brand, both online and offline. Unlike zero-party data, which customers intentionally hand over, first-party data is gathered through analytics and tracking as people naturally engage with channels.

The era of third-party cookies is coming to a close, pushing marketers to rethink how they collect and use customer data. With browsers phasing out tracking capabilities and privacy regulations growing stricter, the focus has shifted to owned data sources that respect privacy whilst still powering personalisation at scale.

Sephora exemplifies this approach. The company uses quizzes to learn about skin type, colour preferences, and beauty goals. Customers enjoy the experience whilst the brand gains detailed zero-party data. Sephora's Beauty Insider programme encourages customers to share information about their skin type, beauty habits, and preferences in exchange for personalised recommendations.

The primary advantage of zero-party data is its accuracy and the clear consent provided by customers, minimising privacy concerns and allowing brands to move forward with confidence that the experiences they serve will resonate. Zero-party and first-party data complement each other beautifully. When brands combine what customers say with how they behave, they unlock a full 360-degree view that makes personalisation sharper, campaigns smarter, and marketing far more effective.

Designing for Explainability

Beyond privacy protections, building trust requires making AI systems understandable. Transparent AI means building systems that show how they work, why they make decisions, and give users control over those processes. This is essential for ethical AI because trust depends on clarity; users need to know what's happening behind the scenes.

Transparency in AI depends on three crucial elements: visibility (revealing what the AI is doing), explainability (clearly communicating why decisions are made), and accountability (allowing users to understand and influence outcomes). Fashion recommendation systems powered by AI have transformed how consumers discover clothing and accessories, but these systems often lack transparency, leaving users in the dark about why certain recommendations are made.

The integration of explainable AI (xAI) techniques amplifies recommendation accuracy. When integrated with xAI techniques like SHAP or LIME, deep learning models become more interpretable. This means that users not only receive fashion recommendations tailored to their preferences but also gain insights into why these recommendations are made. These explanations enhance user trust and satisfaction, making the fashion recommendation system not just effective but also transparent and user-friendly.

Research analysing responses from 224 participants reveals that AI exposure, attitude toward AI, and AI accuracy perception significantly enhance brand trust, which in turn positively impacts purchasing decisions. This study focused on Generation Z's consumer behaviours across fashion, technology, beauty, and education sectors.

However, in a McKinsey survey of the state of AI in 2024, 40% of respondents identified explainability as a key risk in adopting generative AI. Yet at the same time, only 17% said they were currently working to mitigate it, suggesting a significant gap between recognition and action. To capture the full potential value of AI, organisations need to build trust. Trust is the foundation for adoption of AI-powered products and services.

Research results have indicated significant improvements in the precision of recommendations when incorporating explainability techniques. For example, there was a 3% increase in recommendation precision when these methods were applied. Transparency features, such as explaining why certain products are recommended, and cultural sensitivity in algorithm design can further enhance customer trust and acceptance.

Key practices include giving users control over AI-driven features, offering manual alternatives where appropriate, and ensuring users can easily change personalisation settings. Designing for trust is no longer optional; it is fundamental to the success of AI-powered platforms. By prioritising transparency, privacy, fairness, control, and empathy, designers can create experiences that users not only adopt but also embrace with confidence.

Who Wins the Monetisation Race?

Given the technological sophistication, consumer adoption rates, and return on investment across different verticals, which sectors are most likely to monetise AI personalisation advisors first? The evidence points to beauty leading the pack, followed closely by eyewear, with broader fashion retail trailing behind.

Beauty brands have demonstrated the strongest monetisation metrics. By embracing beauty technology like AR and AI, brands can enhance their online shopping experiences through interactive virtual try-on and personalised product matching solutions, with a proven 2-3x increase in conversions compared to traditional shopping online. Sephora's use of machine learning to track behaviour and preferences has led to a six-fold increase in ROI.

Brand-specific results are even more impressive. Olay's Skin Advisor doubled its conversion rates globally. Avon's adoption of AI and AR technologies boosted conversion rates by 320% and increased order values by 33%. AI-powered data monetisation strategies can increase revenue opportunities by 20%, whilst brands leveraging AI-driven consumer insights experience a 30% higher return on ad spend.

Consumer adoption in beauty is also accelerating rapidly. According to Euromonitor International's 2024 Beauty Survey, 67% of global consumers now prefer virtual try-on experiences before purchasing cosmetics, up from just 23% in 2019. This dramatic shift in consumer behaviour creates a virtuous cycle: higher adoption drives more data, which improves AI accuracy, which drives even higher adoption.

The beauty sector's competitive dynamics further accelerate monetisation. With relatively low barriers to trying new products and high purchase frequency, beauty consumers engage with AI tools more often than consumers in other categories. This generates more data, faster iteration cycles, and quicker optimisation of AI models. The emotional connection consumers have with beauty products also drives willingness to share personal information in exchange for better recommendations.

The market structure matters too. Beauty retail is increasingly dominated by specialised retailers like Sephora and Ulta, and major brands like L'Oréal and Estée Lauder, all of which have made substantial AI investments. This concentration of resources in relatively few players enables the capital-intensive R&D required for cutting-edge AI personalisation. Smaller brands can leverage platform solutions from providers like ModiFace, creating an ecosystem that accelerates overall adoption.

The eyewear sector follows closely behind beauty in monetisation potential. Research shows retailers who use AI and AR achieve a 20% higher engagement rate, with revenue per visit growing by 21% and average order value increasing by 13%. Companies can achieve up to 30% lower returns because augmented reality try-on helps buyers purchase items that fit.

Deloitte highlighted that retailers using AR and AI see a 40% increase in conversion rates and a 20% increase in average order value compared to those not using these technologies. The eyewear sector benefits from several unique advantages. The category is inherently suited to virtual try-on; eyeglasses sit on a fixed part of the face, making AR visualisation more straightforward than clothing, which must account for body shape, movement, and fabric drape.

Additionally, eyewear purchases are relatively high-consideration decisions with strong emotional components. Consumers want to see how frames look from multiple angles and in different lighting conditions, making AI-powered visualisation particularly valuable. The sector's strong margins can support the infrastructure investment required for sophisticated AI systems, whilst the relatively limited SKU count makes data management more tractable.

The strategic positioning of major eyewear players also matters. Companies like EssilorLuxottica and Warby Parker have vertically integrated operations spanning manufacturing, retail, and increasingly, technology development. This control over the entire value chain enables seamless integration of AI capabilities and capture of the full value they create. The partnerships between eyewear companies and tech giants—exemplified by Meta's investment in EssilorLuxottica—bring resources and expertise that smaller players cannot match.

Broader fashion retail faces more complex challenges. Whilst 39% of cosmetic companies leverage AI to offer personalised product recommendations, leading to a 52% increase in repeat purchases and a 41% rise in customer engagement, fashion retail's adoption rates remain lower.

McKinsey's analysis suggests that the global beauty industry is expected to see AI-driven tools influence up to 70% of customer interactions by 2027. The global market for AI in the beauty industry is projected to reach $13.4 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 20.6% from 2023 to 2030.

With generative AI, beauty brands can create hyper-personalised marketing messages, which could improve conversion rates by up to 40%. In 2025, artificial intelligence is making beauty shopping more personal than ever, with AI-powered recommendations helping brands tailor product suggestions to each individual, ensuring that customers receive options that match their skin type, tone, and preferences with remarkable accuracy.

The beauty industry also benefits from a crucial psychological factor: the intimacy of the purchase decision. Beauty products are deeply personal, tied to identity, self-expression, and aspiration. This creates higher consumer motivation to engage with personalisation tools and share the data required to make them work. Approximately 75% of consumers trust brands with their beauty data and preferences, a higher rate than in general fashion retail.

Making It Work

AI personalisation in fashion and lifestyle represents more than a technological upgrade; it's a fundamental restructuring of the relationship between brands and consumers. The technologies that seemed impossible a decade ago, that Warby Parker's founders patiently waited for, are now not just real but rapidly becoming table stakes.

The essential elements are clear. First, UX design must prioritise transparency and explainability. Users should understand why they're seeing specific recommendations, how their data is being used, and have meaningful control over both. The integration of xAI techniques isn't a nice-to-have; it's fundamental to building trust and ensuring adoption.

Second, privacy protections must be built into the foundation of these systems, not bolted on as an afterthought. The shift from third-party cookies to zero-party and first-party data strategies offers a path forward that respects consumer autonomy whilst enabling personalisation. Compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and emerging regulations should be viewed not as constraints but as frameworks for building sustainable customer relationships.

Third, bias mitigation must be ongoing and systematic. Diverse training datasets, bias-aware algorithms, regular fairness audits, and diverse development teams are all necessary components. The cosmetic and skincare industry's initiatives embracing diversity and inclusion across traditional protected attributes like skin colour, age, ethnicity, and gender provide models for other sectors.

Fourth, human oversight remains essential. The most successful implementations, like Stitch Fix's approach, maintain humans in the loop. AI should augment human expertise, not replace it entirely. This ensures that edge cases are handled appropriately, that cultural sensitivity is maintained, and that systems can adapt when they encounter situations outside their training data.

The monetisation race will be won by those who build trust whilst delivering results. Beauty leads because it's mastered this balance, creating experiences that consumers genuinely want whilst maintaining the guardrails necessary to use personal data responsibly. Eyewear is close behind, benefiting from focused applications and clear value propositions. Broader fashion retail has further to go, but the path forward is clear.

Looking ahead, the fusion of AI, AR, and conversational interfaces will create shopping experiences that feel less like browsing a catalogue and more like consulting with an expert who knows your taste perfectly. AI co-creation will enable consumers to develop custom shades, scents, and textures. Virtual beauty stores will let shoppers walk through aisles, try on looks, and chat with AI stylists. The potential $3-5 trillion value of agentic commerce by 2030 will reshape not just how we shop but who controls the customer relationship.

But this future only arrives if we get the trust equation right. The 79% of consumers concerned about data use, the 60% aware of AI biases in beauty tools, the 40% of executives identifying explainability as a key risk—these aren't obstacles to overcome through better marketing. They're signals that consumers are paying attention, that they have legitimate concerns, and that the brands that take those concerns seriously will be the ones still standing when the dust settles.

The mirror that knows you better than you know yourself is already here. The question is whether you can trust what it shows you, who's watching through it, and whether what you see is a reflection of possibility or merely a projection of algorithms trained on the past. Getting that right isn't just good ethics. It's the best business strategy available.

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

In Summary: * When I woke this morning I was surprised to find news of Maduro's capture, and throughout the day I kept following news reports about that and what it might portend. Lots of reports, lots of opinions. Then I caught an NFL game late in the afternoon, and a Saturday night monster movie is coming right up.

Prayers, etc.: My daily prayers

Health Metrics: * bw= 221.58 lbs. * bp= 129/80 (71)

Exercise: * kegel pelvic floor exercise, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 07:20 – 1 peanut butter sandwich * 09:00 – red velvet cake * 12:00 – refried beans, fried rice, steak, guacamole, sour cream, nacho chips, sliced vegetables * 15:00 – 1 fresh apple

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 07:00 – bank accounts activity monitored * 07:30 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, nap * 15:30 – listening to the NFL on Westwood One, early in the 1st qtr. of the Carolina Panthers vs the Tamps Bay Buccaneers Game * 16:25 – ... and Tampa Bay wins, final score 16 to 14. * 19:00 – time for the Saturday night Svengoolie.

Chess: * 15:55 – moved in all pending CC games