Six months ago, who would have thought that fashion was worth saving? Protesters picketed fashion shows, customers demanded transparency from brands, and designers began to reject the system altogether, sitting out seasons and upcycling deadstock materials to create limited-edition pieces. Fashion, at least in the traditional sense, had already become deeply unfashionable long before coronavirus rendered it officially.
Yet fashion’s hardship has been put into perspective by the urgent pleas from frontline medical staff and under- funded healthcare services in need of vital protective clothing and equipment. When governments failed to provide it hospitals called upon fashion designers and brands, who answered with urgency and efficiency.
The message is that we’re all in this together. Designers and fashion executives around the world have been casting aside rag-trade rivalry and are desperately sharing information and medical contacts, rallying their artisans and factories to do what they can for global health services. Even fashion prizes, whether it’s the British Fashion Council’s or the LVMH Prize, have split the total winnings among applicants and finalists, making it clear that now is not the time for competition.
There’s creativity, of course, which is why we all fell in love with the industry in the first place. But it has slowly been decimated by the unyielding pace of misaligned seasons and an emphasis on heavily branded but expensive and totally nondescript clothes.
Other fashion houses may follow suit over the next few months, and given that menswear and couture weeks have already been cancelled, they will certainly have to find new ways of communicating their collections – that is, if they are able to produce them. The Cruise 2021 ship was due to set sail this May but now its far-flung stops have been cancelled indefinitely.