The Millinery–Industrial Complex: À la Victoire (2026)
A-Thrice | AI-assisted conceptual art, digital couture, political satire and interactive exhibition
What happens when military power becomes fashion—and patriotism becomes something we can purchase? The Millinery–Industrial Complex: À la Victoire is a research-led, AI-assisted conceptual exhibition that transforms contemporary American military operations into an extravagant collection of imaginary haute couture, commemorative merchandise and museum collectibles. The project draws inspiration from the coiffure à la Belle Poule, an eighteenth-century French hairstyle that celebrated naval combat by placing miniature warships in elaborate aristocratic coiffures. A-Thrice reimagines this tradition for the twenty-first century, replacing sailing ships with modern destroyers, aircraft, missiles and helicopters, rendered as exquisite sculptural headdresses.
Thirteen digitally constructed couture portraits combine crimson velvet, gold ornamentation, pearls, black veiling and miniature military landscapes. Their seductive fashion-editorial aesthetic invites admiration before revealing the uncomfortable histories beneath the ornament. Each work references a documented American military operation, accompanied by research that distinguishes historical evidence from artistic symbolism. The exhibition's second movement, Victory Merch, translates the same operations into the visual language of political campaigning and consumer branding. Ornate red caps carry triumphant slogans undermined by their own qualifications: “SAFE PASSAGE / HUMAN COST SOLD SEPARATELY” and “TARGET ELIMINATED / END OF STORY?”
A fictional museum gift shop extends the satire through imagined product photography, boxed collectibles, pins, postcards, certificates and other souvenirs. The objects appear desirable, authentic and ready for purchase, yet the entire retail environment is a digital construction. Nothing depicted has been manufactured or offered for sale. The exhibition deliberately borrows the visual authority of museums, luxury fashion and commercial merchandising. Its imaginary institutional setting, complete with curatorial interpretation and a 55-page illustrated exhibition catalogue, creates a convincing cultural experience while exposing the mechanisms through which institutions confer legitimacy.
AI-assisted image-making is fundamental to the work. It allows A-Thrice to construct an impossible couture collection and a fully imagined museum environment, using the aesthetics of realism to question the relationship between appearance, authenticity and authority. The project does not equate the historical operations it examines or present its invented imagery as documentary evidence. Instead, it explores how complicated histories are transformed into reassuring narratives of achievement.
Ultimately, The Millinery–Industrial Complex asks what happens when violence becomes beautiful, patriotism becomes fashionable, and the consequences of power disappear behind the pleasure of possessing its symbols.
The objects are imaginary. The history is not.
