Perplexing AI Video Turns "Harry Potter" Into Balenciaga Ad

"What is the difference, Potter, between H&M and Balenciaga?"

Balenci Potter

An impressive new deepfake video reimagines the cast of Harry Potter as a 1980s-style ad for the Spanish luxury fashion house Balenciaga, a vision so lifelike and convincing, we wish we could get our hands on a feature-length and Alejandro Jodorowksy-directed reenvisioning of the hit fantasy series.

The clip, titled "Harry Potter by Balenciaga" and created by Patreon user demonflyingfox, even uses deepfaked voices trained on the original cast, over a pounding electronic beat.

"What is the difference, Potter, between H&M and Balenciaga?" a reimagined professor Snape asks the story's protagonist rhetorically.

 

You're a Model, Harry

The transformations are uncanny. Snape turns from a grimy, black-haired professor draped in robes into a chiseled, leather jacket and turtleneck-rocking supermodel, while Dumbledore turns in his decorated wizard's cap for a stylish, wide-brim leather hat and blacked-out round sunglasses.

"You just created a 2 million dollar ad for probably less than 10 bucks," one YouTube user commented on the video.

Even Tesla CEO Elon Musk appears to be impressed by the machine learning algorithm's work, replying to the video with two fire emojis.

"I’m constantly brainstorming which combinations and mash-ups of popular media might work," demonflyingfox told Dazed. "I quickly realized these have to be as unexpected as possible, but still make sense. With his innocent and naive vibe, it worked surprisingly well to put Harry in an adult, cold-world scenario.

"I already put Harry in the Yakuza world so it was only a matter of time till I’d think of the fashion bubble… and the most memeable company is probably Balenciaga right now," they added, alluding a previous video.

Papal Drip

AI-generated imagery is having a big moment in pop culture right now. Earlier this month, an AI image of Pope Francis wearing a Balenciaga-esque white papal puffer went viral, with many not realizing the picture was synthetic.

And now that we've seen the potential of a cutting-edge Harry Potter-inspired fashion ad, we can't help but wonder: what if the Boy Who Lived chose to become a male model instead?

READ MORE: The biggest threat AI poses? A Harry Potter remake set in Balenciaga-land [Dazed]