Issue 1: Covid Party of 1

How Pandemics of The Past Have Impacted The Fashion Industry and Why Coronavirus Is Set To Follow Suit

As most are probably already aware, fashion trends don’t appear out of thin air. In fact, they do quite the opposite. Trends are the direct result of years upon years of slight, yet substantial when compiled, changes in culture, behavior, ongoing social events, social movements, and virtually every other significant happening of the world at large. Trend analysts and researchers spend their entire career watching and tracking these changes and inputting their findings into specially crafted algorithms all with the same end goal of staying ahead of the “Fashion Curve.” By staying ahead of the Fashion Curve brands are able to pull off an essential task in marketing. They are essentially able to tell the world what they will like, want, and desire before the world even knows it themselves.If done correctly it appears like magic, really.

Now a whole article could be spent going into depth about this, but that’s not what we’re here today to talk about. Instead, now proposed will be the ever prevailing question of the season: what happens when life as it is known changes immediately and substantially, as like when the world undergoes a pandemic? What happen sto fashion now, when rather than attending parties with rooms full of people the only parties to attend are parties of one? Something that no previous trend reports, studies, or predictions could have assumed.

No one can say for sure, but most fashion professionals will agree that the best way to predict the future of fashion comes from studying it’s past. Aside from the overarching pendulum of trends, one may look back to times when the world underwent something similar in terms of crisis, to a pandemic. Christian Dior and his “New Look” post WWII, Coco Chanel foraging fabric scraps for never before seen women’s couture looks post WWI, Escapist fashion of the 1930s and 40s following political upheaval and widespread uncertainty towards the future, all examples of the way that crisis can form and shape new tactics in fashion.

Although none of the outcomes of these crises looked exactly the same, they all shared a similar pattern. Coming out of a crisis led to a dramatic change in the trends from both immediately before as well as during. When leaving an unfavorable time, people want a change. They want a contrast from the unpleasant times that they have become equipped to. Historically, they want their style to reflect the opposite of whatever situation they’ve been suffering. So rather than assuming anew era of normalizing loungewear is coming, a more optimistic look at the future portrays a new age of The Roaring 20’s. Fabulous, glamorous, all around an era of more is more when it comes to dress.

People are social creatures, the majority of whom are now itching to go out again, to make appearances, to make statements, and now to do so in a way more dramatic than ever. A promising hypothetical, but what can be said for sure is that fashion is ever changing, and the Party of One way of life won’t last forever. So before you go throwing out the sequins and stilettos that have been collecting dust in the back of your closet remember that someday, inevitably, life will once again be a large party.