six fingers can undo six months of craft.

dior's christmas film was sold as a tribute to the human hand: six minutes of animation, all hand-drawn using 1940s techniques. within days, people online were counting fingers. some found six on a character's hand and decided it was ai.

nothing has been proven, and dior hasn't commented. but, these days an accusation just needs a screenshot.

the timing made it worse. prada had just released its own hand-drawn film, with a behind-the-scenes video of animators drawing frame by frame.

luxury has spent decades telling us things are made by hand. now that ai can imitate the look of handmade in seconds, the words alone don't carry much weight.

in my latest jing daily column, i wrote about a xiaohongshu video that made a sichuan kitchen apron look like a luxury campaign. chinese consumers know the codes of luxury well enough to reproduce them, and well enough to spot when something doesn't add up.

long story short, if the story is "made by human hands", we now have to prove it, in the ad as much as in the atelier. otherwise, people will check for us. right now they're counting fingers.