Bollywood Stars Join Viral 1980s AI Photo Trend
Parineeti Chopra, Ravi Kishan, Kiara Advani Among Celebrities Embracing Retro AI Makeovers
Bollywood celebrities have joined a viral social media trend that is transforming contemporary photographs into glamorous, nostalgic images inspired by the 1980s.
Ameesha Patel
Over the past few days, social media platforms, particularly Instagram and X, have been flooded with AI-generated “80s photos”. The trend uses ChatGPT and other image-generation tools to recreate modern photographs in the visual style of the decade, giving them the appearance of images from old Bollywood magazines, family wedding albums or classic film posters.
Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra
Several Bollywood personalities have jumped onto the trend. Parineeti Chopra and Raghav Chadha shared a vintage-style couple portrait that evoked classic Bollywood romance. Chopra added a playful caption asking her husband why they could not have met when they were born.
Parineeti Chopra and Raghav Chadha
Actor-politician Ravi Kishan also embraced the craze with a dapper 1980s hero makeover featuring flowing long hair and vibrant retro styling. Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra were similarly reimagined as a striking vintage film duo.
Ravi Kishan
Other celebrities, including Shruti Haasan, Abhay Verma, Nushrratt Bharuccha and Ameesha Patel, have also joined the bandwagon. Abhay Verma opted for an all-denim look, further leaning into the fashion associated with the decade.
Samantha Ruth Prabhu
The craze follows several earlier viral AI trends, including Studio Ghibli-inspired portraits and action-figure avatars, which encouraged users to experiment with their digital identities and photographs.
The concept is simple. Users upload a recent photograph and instruct the AI tool to recreate it with an 1980s aesthetic. The technology generally retains the person’s facial features while altering their clothes, hairstyles, lighting, backgrounds and overall colour grading.
Shruti Haasan
The resulting images often feature dramatic hairstyles, vintage denim, aviator sunglasses, power dressing, sarees, film grain and the distinctive glamour associated with Bollywood of that era. Some users are also recreating the look of fictional movie characters and retro film posters.
However, the 1980s revival has its critics. Veteran filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt described the trend as a passing fad and questioned the decade’s aesthetic appeal. Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma was also dismissive, arguing that smartphones have become a dominant source of entertainment.
Despite the criticism, the AI-generated retro-photo trend continues to spread rapidly, with celebrities, politicians, journalists, sportspersons and ordinary users experimenting with their own versions of the 1980s look.