"Phygital" Fashion Week And How Fashion Is Shifting Its Agenda
Written by Jessy Humann
No industry has gone unaffected by COVID-19, and the fashion industry is doing the best it can to make necessary changes. Many people have been wondering what fashion week will look like this fall. Will it continue as normal? Will certain brands drop out? Will COVID-19 have changed the trajectory of future fashion weeks forever?
One of the biggest points of fashion week is for designers to be able to showcase their new collections, and there’s no better way to do this than on the runway. With much of the world still in some stage of quarantine though, designers are having to get creative. Fashion week will still be happening, but it will only run for three days in September. If there’s enough demand, a fourth day may be added.
Many designers won’t be participating in fashion week simply because they’ve been too heavily affected by COVID-19. The pandemic has caused canceled orders, staff furloughs, and factory closures, all of which affect the finances of designers. Smaller brands that have been hit hard will likely be unable to attend fashion week, and many other brands simply remain uncertain as to whether or not they’ll take part.
Even some big designers who might not have been hit so hard financially have announced they won’t be attending fashion week. Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors are two such designers that have opted out. Many other brands have committed to doing “phygital” shows or live presentations that viewers can tune into.
Burberry, for example, will be staging an outdoor runway show that will be available for people to watch online. The first-ever online Paris fashion week also launched on July 6th, combining Paris haute couture and men's fashion week into one.
There’s still a lot of uncertainty about how things will go and who will be a part of fashion week. There’s no way to predict whether or not fashion weeks of the future will switch to a more digital scene, or if designers and brands will want to go back to how things used to be as soon as possible.
As COVID-19 continues to affect the fashion industry, it may continue to change the landscape of future fashion shows as well.
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