Hola Sugarcups,
We inhabit the age of the perpetual fashion; and for the first time we have never been so plundered.
Last week I was wandering round a charity shop in Dalston and I saw a girl. She was familiar with the fashion triangle and was at least three decades old. She bustled her way past a long line of plastics, blouses and-er-plastics, polyestery, midis, for a khaki knitted cardigan. Well a kind of very, very cream/old oatmeal, thick, bitchily handknitted piece of monstrosity in with bigthumpy/umbilical/soitgoes, button and border and non-tribalised pockets and no discernible rings of trendiness. She picked it up, fondled, pressed into her face (we’ve all done that). She said,
“Finally, something that actually feels like something!”
That resonated! This is truly the great showdown in fashion today: an AI army that can generate hundreds of designs in an hour to help us assemble the perfect permutation of as many of these dressings as possible, and some people rummaging through charity shops for a jacket with an unusual texture. And what is the tactile rebellion?
What is Tactile Rebellion?
Not a movement just yet, but if you’ve been scrolling Tik Tok and Instagram 2026, you’ll know that 99.9% of the most popular things are all texture related. Slow-motion shots of individuals creating and interacting with linen at markets, as you get to experience precisely why it’s different from the linen on the product pages. Welcome to Does it feel good? Season.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not anti AI (I’ve spoken about how Generative AI isn’t just changing the way we design but the way that we forecast in 2026!). It’s so incredible! This year ASOS have rolled out AI into their design process across all areas of it. They can switch through colourways instantly with prompts, but don’t forget that no matter how many images AI can produce you can’t feel that second of joy, you can’t feel the weight, the breathability, the warmth of a fabric from a render.
We are humans. We can put on our clothes. But we are asked to love the clothes we can’t really touch. And that’s where the Tactile Rebellion starts.
The Data
London searches for ‘handmade clothes’ increase in early 2026. ‘Use is back’ for used and vintage in UK It’s the online clothes returns, ‘Looks different in real life’ and ‘Wrong fabric’ are always in the top 5 reasons. And then, there’s the texture gap. You fell for a piece on the front of the box, because the photo was incredible (maybe AI designed, stitched, modelled or went for a lovely walk and the clothes are now telling you something else).
Etsy independent sellers are even having a record month for handmade. Small London based fashion brands are finding clients by sourcing British wool, natural un-dyed fibre and visible stitching to create long term wait lists. It’s the craft boom of 2026! Tiktok hashtag for craft is going well: #craftcore (which BTW was out at the beginning of the year) and now the sustainable community has finally joined the hashtag train (Thank God) — we want the products that just make us feel like a person that made it!
Why Your Body Knows Best
I work a lot in fashion and tech, and I find it’s so cool that art has this extraordinary ability to make really lovely images. It can look at millions and millions of images and develop useful trends for your consumer, but this is the most powerful machine learning tool we’ve ever had in terms of fashion. It’s simply only all visual though. When you wear the clothing you’re wearing, you’re kind of feeling it through your proprioception, in the sense that you have this awareness of where your body is in space and what it’s touching that possesses physical properties, hence the cashmere jumper and not the synthetic.
What truly gets into my wardrobe (the one I actually wear), just feels good, alters my posture and these are the pants I can face whatever life throws at me. That’s not a computer’s fantasy.
Opportunities For Brands
Several bold and gifted fashion founders and CMOs have already spoken out about what your brand should do to capitalize on the Tactile Rebellion. Those brands will receive a treasure trove of customer loyalty.
Share a story with your fabric. Don’t just say ‘100% Organic Cotton’ – Anyone can do that. Tell a story with your fabric. Where does the fibre originate? How is it processed? How does it work for various skin types? The world is crying out for people and AI can’t do that.
More of your process. Send us pictures of your makers using your fabric. Hands on fabric. Scissors on cutting tables, presses sewing. Much more engaging than product styling. That proprioceptive curiosity. Your brain will fill in the textures.
Be honest with your synthetics. If you have had your polyester blouse for three years – then say so and tell us how. If you are a tactile buyer and know the value of the cheap, hard-wearing, comfortable fabric – then tell us. The end buyer will thank you for the information.
Create touch loyalty programs. Plenty of brands have cool “Feel Before You Buy” activities. Swatches included in your online order, physical activations in stores, local classes – we’re still figuring it all out, but in the right direction. Sending the actual fabric first to someone solves the biggest barrier to online clothing purchasing.
The Big Picture
Much like the Tactile Rebellion, we’re up against a medium (the internet, the algorithm, lovely images of your ideal-lit products) where we’re tackling a category that was never meant to be visual to begin with. We did this with food. Through foodporn, we had everything deliciously over-the-top, expertly styled, out of our reach, beautiful plates of food. And now we’re doing the reverse and doing it more “real”. I want wrinkled kitchen hands, shaky hand, a guttural crunching, tearing sound, the way a fish is dragged to land. The one that makes me hungry. Not rock on, dude.
It’s got the same issue. Perfect 3d virtual mannequin, perfect piece of clothing by AI – in part it’s a food equivalent of a picture to me that’s a wow – but never a ‘I want to eat it’. Tactile Rebellion is asking you to make a piece of content that makes me go – ‘I want to wear this so bad that I can touch it! Now that’s the goal.
If you’re a brand – this is your moment, this very second, for investing into what human machines can do: Stories of your fabric and process and the way your product feel on human bodies.
Slower and deliberately non-scalable, but we cannot be overpowered by AI. BRAND AND FANS, trust your brand, trust is the most valuable and scarce resource in fashion 2026.
Jasmin x
P.S. If you’re a London-based brand working on exactly this kind of material storytelling and want to make it convert, my DMs are open and I am very much here for it. Also read my piece on what’s actually trending in sustainable fashion across the UK and India, it lines up with everything I’ve said here in ways that’ll make your brain light up.
