There are many ideas surrounding the elusive notion of taste. That you either have it or you do not, and that, on the scale of those who possess it, it may take years to cultivate yet, even then, never quite be perfected. Taste runs as a constant undercurrent through the fashion and luxury industries. It is an invisible force that underwrites their legitimacy, often splitting opinion between those who believe style is innate—allowing certain people to wear anything and make it look good—and those who believe it can be acquired through visible markers of success, from labels and jewels to couture and the right figure.
This tension is visible in conversations surrounding the minted style icons of today: the transformation of Rihanna from pop singer to fashion icon; Harry Styles from boy band heartthrob to certified fashion poster; the evolution of Greta Lee from the early days of Girls to her celebrated work in Past Lives as she became a fashion darling; and the influence of top stylists like Danielle Goldberg, whose stamp of approval can elevate a client’s fashion credentials, and Zendaya and Anya Taylor-Joy at the hands of Law Roach. The machinery is well oiled and style has become, in many ways, a commodity.
For those of us who aren’t celebrities, many see the difference as lying between purchasing an It bag and patiently hunting down a perfectly curated vintage rarity after months of searching; between following a look wholesale and working with the alchemy of your own wardrobe to arrive at something unmistakably individual; between, as the most clichéd of sayings go, wearing something and letting it wear you.
I, for one, find this idea of taste increasingly outdated and believe we are all entitled to like what we like. My guiding principle, both in how I dress and how I find joy in fashion, is simple: we should be able to wear what we want and enjoy it fully. If there must be a mandate to find one’s style, it should emerge naturally from pleasure, not pressure. And honestly, what is wrong with never having it figured out? Often, it is precisely this uncertainty that allows a more honest relationship with the things we truly love.
Still, as times shift, taste may be reaching a different kind of peak. What once belonged to fashion dolls, catalogues, magazines and later Pinterest boards now exists in the relentless pace of social media. Real-time celebrity sightings, runway shows, product drops and embedded advertisements have collapsed distance and delay. Building a personal world of style—and with it acquiring taste—has become faster, more accessible and immediate.
“So as style and taste—and by extension shopping—become ever more attainable commodities, the question sharpens: how are luxury brands responding to this shift and how exactly are they selling into it?”
And it is no longer just celebrities shaping this landscape. We now live in an ecosystem of tastemakers who feel real, relatable and authentic to the audiences engaging with fashion every day. So as style and taste—and by extension shopping—become ever more attainable commodities, the question sharpens: how are luxury brands responding to this shift and how exactly are they selling into it?
The answer, it seems, lies in agentic systems and their current and future potentials. As AI embeds itself in luxury, from agentic storefronts to emotionally attuned recommendation systems that do not simply respond but actively anticipate, taste is no longer formed in isolation. Instead, it is shaped within an ecosystem designed to reflect and reinforce desire and, ultimately, to make shopping as effortless as possible. In a nutshell, it guides you through the multiple steps of shopping: discovering, searching and then purchasing the product. The discovery aspect, however, is what has become a nugget of gold.
At its core, this creates a universe where you can move easily between the many stages of shopping within one interface. According to Canadian company Shopify, this shift is being led by their new venture, a Universal Commerce Protocol in partnership with Google, creating a system that guides you through countless choices—but leaving the final decision about how to spend your money in your hands.
What fundamentally changes, though there are many moving parts, is the shift away from traditional advertising, where brands with the biggest budgets automatically receive the most visibility. In this new paradigm, AI begins to curate, creating a level playing field for all brands, regardless of size. To explore this phenomenon, I spoke with Candina Weston, an international and Singapore-based technology executive, founder and director of IP.Global, who has held senior marketing and operational roles at Microsoft.
“Taste has never been formed in isolation. It has always emerged from personal experience, social influence, cultural authority and brand point of view. What changes with data-driven systems is not the origin of taste, but the scale and speed at which those influences are captured and reflected back. The process is continuous: millions of interactions, choices, hesitations and responses are constantly being recorded, analysed and re-expressed as recommendations, assortments and narratives,” she notes.
“As recommendations become more accurate, it can feel as though taste resides in the system. In reality, it resides in the loop: between individuals, brands with a point of view, and the data layer that continuously captures, aggregates and redistributes those human signals.”
She describes it as another mode of cueing: “We have always taken cues from authorities: designers, editors, brands, peers. Data-driven systems become another channel through which those cues are filtered and prioritised. Abdication would imply surrendering judgment to something that truly understands identity and meaning. These systems don’t. They work from historical patterns in human behaviour and preference.” Convenience only becomes an issue if individuals stop interrogating what the data is optimising for.
A large part of the process involves piecing together multiple aspects: browsing habits, social media presence, data and even how you’ve scheduled your life online. The system predicts what could work, taking some of the heavy lifting off your plate—but it is not meant to mute the stylist in you. “AI creates by learning from human input. If we fear it will erase originality, we have to question whether we believe humans are capable of originality in the first place. The technology does not originate taste; it recombines and reflects it.” With luxury fundamentally trading on emotion, memory and aspiration, what could we risk losing when emotional cues become data?
“In reality, not as much as the narrative suggests,” Weston explains. Current systems are still limited—focused more on efficiency in forecasting, targeting and inventory rather than true emotional understanding. And importantly, we don’t live in a closed loop. Our tastes are shaped continuously by people, culture, travel, media and experience. AI learns from those human signals; it does not originate them. So is our taste really our own anymore? One could argue that inspiration comes from everywhere—from hours spent hunting through a thrift store, to the joy of wearing a borrowed piece from a sibling, or something imagined and brought to life from a sketch. And yet, largely, taste remains ours. Even as algorithms surface options and streamline decisions, the act of liking or disliking—the judgment, the preference—still belongs to us. It is this human choice, this spark of individual discernment, that ensures taste remains, ultimately, a personal affair.
Illustration Didier Wong
