The Interline Podcast

Zalando has pushed further than perhaps any other company in embedding generative AI into its content creation - from product page materials to full-blown creative campaigns - and in talking openly about it. But if cost-saving isn’t the primary objective, what is? Ben talks to Glazione Rocha , Creative Director, to find out how a company at the bleeding edge of deploying AI for consumer-facing con...

For this week's edition of The Edit - the quickfire fashion technology analysis show from The Interline - Ben and Grace talk about... Fashion's place in Substack sponsorships: https://on.substack.com/p/a-business-model-that-works-for-creators Domestic manufacturing and tech startups against the backdrop of UK political devolution: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/29/what-is-andy-burnh...

Outside of software itself, knitting is probably the closest thing fashion has to coding: a verifiable, binary discipline defined by scarce talent, and specialised software and hardware. Upending it might be the industry’s high bar for new technology - but one company is trying anyway. Ben talks to Garrett Gerson , CEO and Co-Founder of Variant3D .

In this week's quickfire analysis, Social Editor Grace Robinson quizzes Editor-In-Chief Ben Hanson on: The UK’s under-sixteen social media ban and the race to reach Gen Alpha . Meta’s Ray-Ban-free smart glasses and Snap’s premium AR specs . SSENSE replacing its creative teams with AI . REI’s two-handlebar AI ad and Meta’s auto-enrolled ad tool . And how a record-breaking European heatwave reminds...

Upstream innovation, in materials, processing, and production, has had a chequered few years. Promising pilots routinely fail to take flight or achieve commercial scale. Ben talks to Stephen Bates , CEO of RHEON LABS, to assess what success on the journey from lab to big-label deployment might actually look like.

This week on The Edit: five fresh headline stories from across fashion and technology receive the quickfire analysis treatment. First: Anthropic releases and is then forced to retract its new Fable 5 model - https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access Second: new data from Adobe suggests that AI interactions can increase retail conversions by 54%, and token budgets per employee appear less...

Fashion devotes a lot of time to securing its inputs, but the importance of water to the industry’s supply chain goes under-discussed, and water is not quantified and assessed the way carbon is. But as water justice becomes a more acute business continuity risk, the demand to reckon with fashion’s thirst is growing. Ben talks to Amira Jehia , Founding Executive Director of Drip By Drip , to unders...

The first edition of The Edit, a new weekly show where Social Editor Grace interviews Editor-in-Chief Ben about five headline stories from across fashion and technology in less than 25 minutes. This week the team pick up and analyse: DRESSX and Depop tackle virtual try-on for the secondary market: https://retailtechinnovationhub.com/home/2026/6/7/dressx-teams-with-depop-on-series-of-ai-powered-res...

The case is strong for someone to own the secondary market, but whether that winds up being first or third-party ownership will depend as much on platforms and standards as it does on business models and incentives. This week, Ben talks to Muhammad "Mo" Kharodia, CTO of pre-loved childrenswear platform Designer Kids Club, to examine why a founder sees an opportunity to prove out the technology for...

Fashion and beauty are surrounded by digital surfaces and physical spaces, and technology has fast become a fixture of how the higher echelons of both industries tell stories and create experiences. But what does the work really look like? And which force - tech or narrative - is in the driving seat? To find out, Ben talks to Francesco Bernabei, CEO of creative innovation studio Monogrid .

Fashion professionals, particularly in planning-related disciplines, are tasked with making a lot of decisions. The environment those choices live in is still stubbornly Excel, so what does it take to design software to replace spreadsheets - especially when AI is added to the mix? To get a perspective, Ben talks to Michaela Wessels , CEO and Co-Founder of Style Arcade.

The unit economics of replacing product photography with either wholly-generated or AI-edited images are, from a rational perspective, pretty clear-cut. But with consumer animus against AI content peaking, there’s more to generative images than just the bottom line. Ben talks to Matthieu Rouif , CEO of Photoroom, about how eCommerce companies and marketplaces are thinking about the gap between the...

Despite individual brand efforts, fashion’s footprint has continued to grow. The upshot might not be immediately catastrophic, but a slow set of signals are reinforcing the urgency - and the potential benefits - of near-term action. Ben talks to Gianluca Belotti, Business Leader at Stahl, and Expert Evaluator for the European Commission, about where sustainability efforts are meeting reality.

Every field that deals in data is figuring out where the boundary sits between analytical models and human judgment. When that data pertains to culture and change, that shifting sweet spot is determined as much by time as it is by technology. To get a better grasp on what actually goes into the art and the science of forecasting, Ben sits down with Carla Buzasi , CEO of "global change authority" W...

Ben talks to Joe Mountain , Sustainability Manager at N Brown Group, about how a combination of hard-coded values around size and price inclusivity, a willingness to recognise the limits of existing systems, and a commitment to looking at things differently manifest themselves in a unique sustainability strategy.

Outside of art, fashion has had perhaps the most divisive relationship with blockchain of any sector. But the same principles and the same technology behind the consumer NFT bust are closer than ever to becoming part of the shared infrastructure of international business. Ben talks to Clare Adelgren, Global Blockchain Leader for EY (one of the "big four," and maybe better known by its old name, Er...

Repeatedly turning creativity into the right product outcomes can feel like an exercise in luck. Can pairing digital product creation with an operationalised approach to design allow brands to tip the scales in their favour? Ben talks to Bo Lupo, a former Senior Director for 3D and Immersive Design at Nike, to explore the intent and the practical reality of initiating and sustaining design operati...

Ben talks to Oliwia Guziel , to get a snapshot of the automations and integrations behind eCommerce logistics at Decathlon’s Central European operations, and the lessons they might hold for other segments and other geographies. This show covers how regional cultural expectations, new ways to push the frontiers of fulfilment speed, and carbon optimisation shape decision-making along the route to fi...

From building repeatable systems to constantly updating their pipelines, seasoned and incoming designers are both working at the bleeding edge. What are they finding there? And what does it mean for the future of hybrid skills, and the balance between 3D and AI? To answer those questions and more, Ben talks to Andrea Doering .

From raw query visibility to market sentiment and authority, AI models search for, rank, and surface brands in a way that’s orthogonal to traditional SEO. Ben talks to Malte Landwehr , Chief Product Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Peec , about what fashion and beauty need to understand about when, why, and how LLMs go to the web, and how to influence what they bring back with them.

Almost as famous for its humanist philosophy as its luxury products, Brunello Cucinelli has also emerged as a lighthouse for AI - not by rushing recklessly forwards, but by undertaking in-house platform work that venerates the human touch at the same time as building composable experiences in real-time. To debate the frontier between the artificial and the human, and to get into the weeds about a...

Ben talks to Kate Padget-Koh, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Squatwolf, about finding the delicate balance between upstream optimisation and innovation, and defining “future ready” supply chain capabilities.

With a business model dominated by licensing, and a heavily consolidated supply chain, eyewear has long been a hostile market for new designers. Now, additive manufacturing and technology miniaturisation are promising to lower barriers and increase the pace of innovation. To understand the different futures for eyewear as a category, Ben talks to Sébastien Brusset - Head of Optics and Design - and...

Ben, a well-documented Web3 skeptic who might still be wrong, is joined by digital fashion educator and entrepreneur Karinna Grant , to revisit the case for decentralised digital ownership, and to ask what lessons the industry should have learned from its last big hype cycle prior to AI.

The success of any comprehensive transformation initiative hinges not just on uptake on the brand side, but on the existence of class-leading capabilities upstream. But what does it look like for a leading supplier to build technology maturity that matches or exceeds the innovation its customers are pursuing? Ben talks to Steve Dodd, Chief Digital Officer for MAS Holdings, about the evolution of d...