Everyone Can Be a Rhode Girl: The AI Beauty Trend Defining 2026
Everyone, for a Day, Can Be a Rhode Girl
A quiet shift is taking place in the beauty industry as a visual phenomenon linked to Rhode’s aesthetic for 2026 begins to take shape.
It is not loud or flashy, nor does it present itself as a bold vision of the future.
Yet it clearly reveals how beauty brands are being reinterpreted in the age of artificial intelligence, particularly in the way image, desire, and participation now intersect.
In this context, a simple yet powerful dynamic has emerged around Rhode’s visual identity.
Its aesthetic world appears suddenly more open, as if inviting people to step inside it.
Not through direct product promotion, but through an experience.
Through AI-generated images, users are able to place themselves within an aesthetic that, until recently, belonged almost exclusively to official brand campaigns.
By using AI photo tools now circulating online, people can create studio-style portraits inspired by Rhode’s signature look.
Soft lighting. Glowing skin. Clean backgrounds.
For a brief moment, anyone can appear as part of a Rhode campaign, without castings, studios, or professional production.
Paco Rabanova for Miu App – Rhode Trend 2026
Marketing and Cultural Impact
From a beauty marketing perspective, the impact of this phenomenon is significant, even without a clearly articulated strategy behind it. What matters here is not intent, but effect.
For years, beauty brands have built awareness through distance. Carefully controlled imagery, flawless faces, and campaigns designed to be admired rather than entered. What is emerging now subtly disrupts that logic. Brand aesthetics no longer remain confined to official channels, but circulate fluidly, replicated and reinterpreted by users themselves.
Rather than positioning the audience as passive viewers, this dynamic places them inside the visual system of the brand. The aesthetic becomes experiential. It can be tried on, inhabited, and temporarily claimed. This shift alters how identification with a brand is formed, moving from aspiration at a distance to participation from within.
As a result, audiences begin to function as an informal extension of brand communication. Each AI-generated image adds another layer to the brand’s visual ecosystem. Awareness grows not solely through traditional advertising, but through proximity, personal involvement, and repeated cultural presence, regardless of whether this process was ever formally designed.
Intentional or Not
It is worth noting that there is currently no clear indication that this phenomenon has been officially approved or initiated by Rhode itself. The AI-generated images circulating online are largely driven by third-party tools that allow users to replicate brand aesthetics across multiple fashion and beauty brands, from Rhode to Chanel or Tiffany.
Yet, despite this lack of formal endorsement, no public statement or action has been taken to limit or discourage the spread of these images. This silence raises an important question: why?
At least for now, the visual return is undeniably powerful. The brand benefits from massive organic visibility, aspirational imagery, and continuous cultural relevance, without direct investment or campaign activation. Whether intentional or not, the result is a form of exposure that many traditional marketing efforts struggle to achieve.
The Wider Industry Context
At the same time, this trend sits within a broader shift unfolding across the fashion and beauty industries. Artificial intelligence is increasingly present in creative processes, but brands are responding to it in very different ways.
Some are actively experimenting with AI-driven imagery and open visual systems, while others appear more cautious, choosing to reaffirm authorship, materiality, and human intervention. Recent campaigns across luxury and beauty suggest a growing tension between aesthetics designed to be replicated and those meant to remain controlled.
What makes the current moment particularly complex is that this tension does not always result from clear strategic decisions. In many cases, it is shaped by external tools, platforms, and user behaviors that move faster than brand governance itself.
As a result, multiple visions now coexist. One allows brand aesthetics to circulate freely, be reinterpreted, and temporarily inhabited. The other seeks to preserve distance, control, and intentionality. Where individual brands ultimately position themselves within this spectrum remains open, but the cultural implications of this shift are already visible.
The Real Shift in Beauty Marketing
This may be the real shift in beauty marketing today.
We no longer just look at brand images.
We step into them.
Published on: 20 January 2026, 3:00 PM (CET)
Offline35mm is a creative agency working at the intersection of culture, brand systems and emerging technologies.
Credits
Offline35mm Magazine, January 2026
Model: @paco_rabanova
App: @miu.app
Brand: @rhodeskin
© 2026 Matteo Papacchioli.
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No part of this article may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, in whole or in part, without prior written permission.
