Rachel Arthur
Sustainability strategist, writer and journalist on fashion, sustainability and technology
Rachel Arthur is an award winning business journalist and sustainability strategist who focuses on the intersection of fashion, sustainability and technology. Her reporting for publications including Forbes, Wired, The Business of Fashion and The New York Times documented how artificial intelligence and digital tools began to change the fashion industry, and since 2020 she has worked as advocacy lead for sustainable fashion at the UN Environment Programme.
| Role | Business journalist and sustainability strategist |
|---|---|
| Focus | Fashion, sustainability and technology |
| Publications | Forbes, Wired, The Business of Fashion, Vogue Business, The Guardian, The New York Times |
| Known for | Early reporting on AI in fashion |
Who is Rachel Arthur?
Rachel Arthur is a business journalist, writer and sustainability strategist known for her work on fashion, sustainability and technology. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, Wired, The Business of Fashion, Vogue Business, The Guardian and The New York Times, among other titles, and she is regarded as one of the early specialist reporters on fashion innovation.
Career
Arthur trained as a journalist and spent several years as a journalist and trend forecaster at WGSN before building her profile by covering how technology companies, start ups and established brands experiment with new tools across the fashion value chain. As a contributor to Forbes she wrote extensively about digital retail, artificial intelligence and sustainable business practice. She later specialised in sustainability: since 2020 she has been advocacy lead for sustainable fashion at the UN Environment Programme, where she worked on the Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook published with UNFCCC in 2023, and she advises organisations such as Google and the British Fashion Council's Institute of Positive Fashion.
Topics she covered included:
- Artificial intelligence as a tool for fashion designers
- Technology incubators inside beauty and luxury groups
- Computer generated models in fashion and beauty marketing
- Voice technology and its potential impact on retail
- Industry collaboration on sustainability, for example at H&M
Rachel Arthur and technology
Arthur's reporting has documented early real world uses of AI in fashion. In January 2018 she wrote for Forbes about Reimagine Retail, a collaboration between IBM, Tommy Hilfiger and the Fashion Institute of Technology. In that project, IBM's computer vision, natural language and deep learning capabilities analysed around 15,000 Tommy Hilfiger product images, about 600,000 publicly available runway images and nearly 100,000 fabric patterns to identify silhouettes, colours, prints and patterns that FIT students then used as inspiration for new designs. Her article highlighted the view, expressed by participants, that AI should augment rather than replace human creativity.
In the same period she examined the rise of computer generated models and the role of voice assistants in shopping, topics that anticipated later debates about virtual influencers and conversational commerce.
Influence on the fashion business
Specialist journalism helps executives understand which innovations are meaningful and which are passing trends. By explaining technology projects in business terms and connecting them with sustainability goals, Arthur's work has given designers, merchandisers and managers a practical view of how digital tools can change product development, marketing and retail.
Why it matters
As generative AI, data and digital product tools become part of everyday work in fashion, the industry relies on informed reporting to separate evidence from hype. Rachel Arthur's long running coverage provides a record of how brands first tested these technologies, and of the questions about creativity, sustainability and responsibility that continue to shape their adoption.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Rachel Arthur?
Rachel Arthur is an award winning business journalist and sustainability strategist who covers the intersection of fashion, sustainability and technology. Her work has appeared in Forbes, Wired, The Business of Fashion and The New York Times, and since 2020 she has been advocacy lead for sustainable fashion at the UN Environment Programme.
What has Rachel Arthur written about AI in fashion?
She has reported on early AI projects in fashion, such as the 2018 Reimagine Retail collaboration between IBM, Tommy Hilfiger and the Fashion Institute of Technology. That project used AI to analyse product, runway and fabric images to inspire student designers.