COVID 19 has put the entire world in a completely unexpected and unprecedented situation. Never has anyone thought or faced the situations the current world is facing. There is a pan-global realignment in almost everything.
Be it lifestyle, work pattern, fashion sense, things have gained dynamicity and are all part of the NEW NORMAL. Under such circumstances, it was also important for fashion brands to reorient their goals, principles, and product catalog.
Fashion during the pandemic seemed to have a different definition and a grossly shifted approach altogether. The urgent call of the textile industry was to cater to the necessities for face masks and hospital gowns.
With the advent, onset, and spread of the COVID 19 pandemic, every single person came to realize that a face mask is the easiest and the most accessible way to stay aloof from this deadly virus. The demand for face masks boomed overnight and it was almost impossible for the textile industry to meet such a huge demand within such a short period.
So, here the world witnessed another overnight renaissance. Well, known fashion brands started the production of masks and hospital gowns – face masks for the common individuals and hospital gowns mostly for the COVID frontline workers.
Though it took time to meet the supply and demand ends meet with each other, it was pretty fast considering the protocols of new normal where the manufacturing houses had to work with only a share of their total employee’s strength.
Since China was the first country that encountered the thrashes of the virus, they had already started preparing face masks on an alarmingly large scale much before the entire world started to.
Global brands like Louis Vitton started to obtain face masks from such Chinese companies to make the mask accessible to common people and Healthline workers. The United States of America is always the eye of the revolutionary cyclones in the world and it was no different this time.
The big bulls of the fashion industry concerned themselves with providing people with the basics, face masks, hospital gowns, face shields, and multiple other necessary defensive kinds of stuff against the spread of the virus.
The world witnessed giant fashion houses like Vogue or Council of Fashion Designers of America leading fundraising campaigns across the business capitals like Los Angeles, California, Paris, France.
The ultimate motive of each of these fashion houses was to make the demand-supply chain of the COVID 19 essentials affluent so that the dire shortage of gloves, masks, gowns, isolation clothes like face shields can be manufactured in enough quantity.
Many fashion houses have also donated huge amounts of money for the production of COVID 19 essentials because nothing can overpower the need to survive and the need to stay safe.
The brands which are themselves into the production of gloves and masks have taken over sustainable production goals whereby they are utilizing handmade, recycled, leftover fabric to prepare beautiful and trendy masks.
Face masks are not restricted to merely covering the face anymore. They have become the manifestos of representing one’s taste, fashion sense, and personality.
Though the industry was taken over by the motive of preparing essentials of COVID 19 primarily, it is the fashion industry after all therefore it is a mandate to showcase a bit of fashion and add an extra edge of style even in the most necessities. The contributions of such internationally acclaimed brands have indeed invited ample spotlight on them.
The global fashion scenario is very alert and acquainted with the term luxury and indeed fashion these days has become more of a luxury commodity. But with the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic, it was this fashion industry that is so often labeled luxuriously, dedifferentiated into proving itself basic and also profoundly manifested the fact that this industry has remarkable plasticity.
This pandemic situation has exposed the true potential of the fashion industry. It has pointed out that fashion is not only for external glitter but fashion is for life. The core of the fashion industry is a beautiful fabrication of life and needs. Fashion is for life and life is soulfully intertwined with fashion.
