The present disclosure relates to unsupervised visual attribute transfer through reconfigurable image translation. One aspect of the present disclosure provides a system for learning the transfer of visual attributes, including an encoder, converter and generator. The encoder encodes an original source image to generate a plurality of attribute values that specify the original source image, and to encode an original reference image to generate a plurality of attribute values that specify the original reference image. The converter replaces at least one attribute value of an attribute that is target attribute of the attribute values of the original source image with at least one corresponding attribute value of the original reference image, to obtain a plurality of attribute values that specify a target image of interest. The generator generates a target image based on the attribute values of the target image of interest.