
How has fashion week positively adapted after the pandemic?
Ordinarily, ahead of the September fashion weeks, we would be wondering about the clothes. Where hemlines might fall this season. Which designers will be the toast of the town. How boho will be reimagined for the thousandth time. But this is 2020, a year like no other, and so the question mark hovers not so much over the collections as the events themselves. CGI runways? A socially-distant ‘FRow’? Bikes between shows instead of taxis? Air-kissing swapped for elbow-bumps and champagne subbed for alcohol hand gel? As the world gradually emerges from the disaster that will define a generation, the fashion calendar must restyle itself for a post-pandemic world. There’s no doubt we are witnessing a pivotal moment for the global textile industry. Clothing sales plummeted during lockdown, with Business of Fashion predicting as much as a 30% year-on-year contraction in global revenue during 2020. At the same time the pandemic has served to expose some shocking behaviour from many fast fashion giants – including $40 billion worth of orders cancelled with factories in Bangladesh and garment workers in the UK forced to work throughout lockdown, some paid as illegally low as £3.50 an hour. As for fashion weeks, environmental campaigners like Extinction Rebellion have been calling for an end to...