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Will The Pandemic Have An Impact On Fashion?

(AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)
A model wears a creation by Haitian designer Michaelle Baussan during Fashion Week in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday, Sept. 20, 2013.

The coronavirus outbreak’s huge impact on business, education and sports continues to be felt, but what about the effect the pandemic is having on the way we dress?

The first trend has been the absence of fashion. Clothing companies have reported huge losses this year with products going unsold as retail outlets, already under duress before the pandemic, were closed, preventing consumers from shopping as they normally would.

“I would certainly recommend that any (clothing business) without a major online presence to move in that direction because we’re going to be living in a world without dressing rooms and that’s going to be really difficult for a lot of people of older generations of American consumers who struggle with buying things online,” said Deidre Clemente, a fashion and culture historian and author of “Dress Casual: How College Students Redefined American Style.”

Clemente, a history professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that clothiers may need to pull back on the number of options for the public. “Companies pare down offerings in times of social upheaval,” she said, noting that in World War II, reduced inventory was the result of people not having the money to buy as much as well as companies that often didn’t have materials available.

Having declared "athleisure,” the trend towards sportswear, as the new casual in 2017, Clemente isn’t sure that the 2020 work-at-home movement will yield further changes in the casual clothing category.

“Casual has long been conflated with sloppy dress but ‘sloppy’ is just an interpretation of casual. As the sliding scale of casual evolves, it will be interesting to see what comes out of the post-pandemic world,” she said.

As for a dramatic fashion reaction to the informality that abounds in America today, Clemente doesn’t see it.

“Dress standards move forward; they rarely go backward,” she said.

“Some of our best clothes came out of the Depression,” said Clemente, citing the example of women’s shorts.

“Shorts were initially just for women bicyclists in the late 1920s. You wouldn’t wear them in public but by the mid to late 1930s, shorts were commonplace in women’s wardrobes. That was also due to the rise in synthetic fabrics at the time,” she said.

The 1920s also saw a change in the way men dressed, said Clemente. Instead of wearing suits, male collegians adopted sports coats that allowed for more versatility, she said.

“Social upheaval really changes how we view appropriate and inappropriate,” said Clemente.

Warmer temperatures and the desire to show support for ethnic traditions might spur other fashion trends, she said. “I live in Las Vegas so I wear a dashiki quite a bit because of the airiness of the garment and the fact that it’s made of cotton,” said Clemente.

Wearing garments fashionable in Africa or the Mideast could be the manifestation of one’s support for this summer’s social justice movement, she said.

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