I learned a new word this morning, vibecoding. Vibecoding is building software by describing what you want in plain English and letting an AI engine generate the code, rather than writing it line by line yourself. Some programmer coined the term in early 2025, and it’s since become mainstream enough to be the Collins Dictionary’s 2025 Word of the Year (how did I miss that?). How it works is that you describe the feature or app you want, the AI writes the code, and you judge success by whether it works, testing and poking at it rather than reading and understanding every line. If you review the code, test it, and can explain how it works to someone else, that’s arguably no longer vibecoding, that’s just AI-assisted development…and sooooo old school. The appeal of it is that non-programmers can prototype real apps without learning to code, experienced developers can skip boilerplate and stay in a creative flow state rather than getting bogged down in syntax, and naturally, its all great for minimal value products (MVPs – the simplest working version of a product that has just enough features to be usable and to test whether the core idea works), internal tools, and quick demos. The catch is that roughly 45% of AI-generated code has been found to contain security flaws, so it’s considered fine for prototypes but risky for production software without real review. The tradeoff is speed and accessibility versus understanding and reliability. You’re trusting the “kitchen staff” to chop the onions correctly without tasting everything yourself.
This concept comes into mind just as I went yesterday into a brick & mortar clothing store for the first time in a long time. It was at UTC Fashion Mall near LaJolla and I went purposefully to exchange a pair of pants I had bought online from what I thought was just a Chinese pop-up brand called BYLT that I have come to like in pants. It turns out that BYLT is getting quite a following. BYLT Basics was founded in 2016 by Eric Mear, who started the brand in Costa Mesa, California (the name is short for “Build Your Life Today”), reflecting a mission to offer clothing that empowers customers in their daily routines. It began as a men’s basics brand, starting with a drop cut shirt and grew into a full range of premium basics including outerwear, mid-layers, and footwear. I’ve become a dedicated wearer of their pants and have realized that much of the design and features of simple clothing like men’s pants is being done digitally based on data-driven consumer preferences. The most relevant examples of this for me vis-a-vis pants are the design of the lower leg and the addition of a zippered “phone” pocket on the the right leg of the pants. Today’s styles among the young (I will use my youngest son Tom as the case study) is for “skinny” styles where the lower leg clings to the calf and ankle. Since brands like BYLT are driving their designs based on social media input and the young are the drivers of social media, voila…skinny legs on pants. In a word, I hate that. I prefer the classic fit that drapes naturally and somewhat loosely (straight) from the knee down. I also know that I’m always trying to replace my cargo pants pocket spots, particularly for my phone. Putting it in the back or front pockets has all sorts of issues that are avoided in cargo pants with the pockets that go along the side of the upper thigh. It turns out that BYLT and other brands have realized this need and built in a zippered pocket in more or less that spot, just for that need. Now if they would only give me the choice of a regular sized iPhone versus a Pro-Max sized pocket, that would be ideal. Maybe I could vibecode that into my next purchase? Those things might seem like regular design features, but then I read in the NY Times this morning about clothing design today….
There’s a clothing company called Edikted, which is a hit among teenagers since Edikted relies on algorithms to design its products. It monitors customers’ social media activity and internet searches. It factors in Hailey Bieber’s latest outfits and spits out 300 styles a month made cheaply in China. After it reached $460 million in sales in 2025, one of its founders boasted to The Wall Street Journal, “We’re more like a data company than a fashion company.” Apparently, this model has proved so potent for the fast-fashion giant Shein, which aims to go public this fall at a valuation of over $40 billion, that it recently gobbled up the popular millennial brand Everlane. Fast fashion and mall brands used to look to the runways for inspiration, but now, much of their output has been “slopified” by back-end data and internet searches. The rise of the algorithm-designer and the fall of independent brands represent the latest stage of the financialization of fashion, the triumph of money over art and craft. We may wear skinny jeans one decade and wide ones the next, but the elevation of corporations over designers has been the industry overarching trend over the past 40 years, and it has gradually killed creative design at all price points. Fashion “slop” is the logical next step in the evolution of ready-to-wear clothing…and I’m loving it.
As much as I liked The Devil Wears Prada and the Amanda Priestly monologue about the origins of Andy’s cerulean blue sweater, I have never been a devotee of fashion. I’ve always been a “form follows function” guy who wants things to look good, but only after they have proven that they work. But I will admit that knowing the “in” colors (I just bought a pair of clay, seafoam and dove pants yesterday) is helpful. What I really am enjoying is watching the degree to which we can all vibecode our way into exactly what we like in clothing design, with the added benefit that if we don’t like the way things feel, we just vibecode our way into the next iteration until its just right…and then until we get tired of that and adjust it a snick so that it is just a bit more right.
It’s a brave new world out there and even things you didn’t think you needed or cared about have suddenly come within easy reach through tactics like vibecoding and just-in-time manufacturing. I feel like soon, I will be able to order my bespoke pair of tech pants with just the right fit, color and feel and exactly all the elements and features that I want, and some Chinese (or perhaps Cambodian…BYLT has shifted some production from China to Cambodia) manufacturer will crank it out, package it into a neat ziplocked bag and place a silica humidity-absorbing packet in there to make you feel they are taking good care of your product as it gets made and shipped to your door…delivered the next morning between 4-8am by an Amazon Prime or Shop driver.