How is the Fashion Industry Dealing With the Pandemic?

 

Twelfth Street was empty except for Kim Shui. The 29-year-old wore calligraphy-precise black eyeliner and a tiger-print cardigan she designed and sewed herself. She carried a few boxes—a donation of supplies being delivered to local hospitals, plus the last few shipments of clothes she could make before New York City shuts down. “Now what?” she laughed… but there was nobody on the usually packed block to answer her.

Instead, the downtown fashion darling beloved by Cardi B. and Kylie Jenner did what resourceful young women have always done when times get tough: She answered the question herself. “I figured it out,” she says from her studio apartment in Manhattan, where she—like millions of other city dwellers—has been ordered to stay home for the foreseeable future. “I’m making masks. I have a sewing machine, and some leftover fabric. I don’t have any elastic,” she say with a sigh, “but I figure I can take it from some of my own clothes for now, and then sew it back on later once I can go shopping for materials again… or even just get to my studio. Obviously, I had to shut it down. My workspace, I mean,” she says firmly. “Not my label. That’s definitely still going.”

How Can Fashion Move Forward?

Style is a lot like love: even when you try, you just can’t stop it. That’s because just like Beyoncé, fashion is a triple threat: it’s a billion-dollar industry, a vital and easily accessible art form, and—because everyone gets dressed in the morning—its goods are both necessary and universal. We all have to have them.

But though style is immutable, its influence can certainly get quieter. And with the havoc and heartbreak of COVID-19, the industry is halfway between a pause and a pivot. A 360-view shows both happening now, as independent labels like Christian Siriano and Cynthia Rowley, along with massive corporations like Gap, Coty, and LVMH, are making masks, hospital gowns, and hand sanitizer. Retail shops are shutting down while e-commerce sites are overloading—and in some cases crashing—from so many virtual orders. Face masks (both the N-95 kind and the K-Beauty pore clearers) are in high demand, and sweatpants—once a Seinfeld punchline and a Hype Boi staple—have become so essential, WWD reports sales have spiked 50 percent. At the same time, factory workers and retail employees are losing their jobs, often with no safety net. Stylists, photographers, and makeup and hair artists are currently without income. Textile production has stopped, and many cotton farmers and wool growers can’t plant and harvest.

In the midst of this push-and-pull, Harper’s Bazaar spoke with dozens of fashion folk about their fears, their future, and the small steps being taken right now that ensure style—like every other art form, and love too—survives.

Remote Work

Two days after I went into “self-isolation,” Jennifer Lopez called me.

It was for an interview scheduled a long time ago, in a galaxy far away… one where you could kiss someone without wondering about the death toll. “At some point, we always bounce back,” the Oscar-robbed icon says. “And so we need to use this time to get ready to come back even better... Nobody wanted this to happen, but if it has to be this way, now we can take advantage of the time and work to get better at what we do. But do that work from home.”

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