Coronavirus has forced a rethink from the fashion industry – now is the time for it to clean up its act

With lockdown and working from home forcing a change in our clothes-buying habits, companies face a new landscape, writes Janet Street-Porter

Next year’s model: how will fashion adapt? (Getty)

Coronavirus has killed off the catwalk – the old way of presenting high fashion to wealthy customers and the press with snooty models parading to a packed salon has given way to the first digital showings.

Borrowing from music videos and experimental cinema, leading designers like Schiaparelli, Balmain and Dior have showcased their work online, entering a new era for this highly-secretive industry on which so many workers, textile mills and specialist suppliers depend.

Dior filmed exquisite tiny versions of their collection, inspired by a collection of fashion dolls made by Lanvin and Schiaparelli in 1945 to try and reboot French couture after the Second World War. Chanel took their models to Paris venue Le Palace and shot them dancing, while Victor and Rolf devised a five-minute “play” narrated by the singer Mika. Dolce and Gabbana built a private website for their Alta Moda collection which rich customers were given a code to enter and see the clothes in more detail. In other words, posh online shopping.

The old way of showing fashion each season involved huge waste – millions of air miles and sets that were destroyed afterwards. Not to mention all the invitations and freebies – given out to stimulate a market largely financed by perfume sales, not the actual clothes themselves. For the 99 per cent of the population who neither write about fashion or can’t afford it, the latest musings about high fashion might mean very little. But the industry is a huge global employer – post pandemic, what kind of future exists for the fashion industry at all?

We’ll continue to buy replacement clothing (citing need as justification for spending), but are we still interested in new fashion? Something that decrees a change every few months, that picks a certain colour, a hem length, a kind of check or a shoulder line as the “latest” incentive to buy if you don’t want to look like a tragic old dodo. An industry built around weird “seasons”, when the weather has changed and new technology creates fabrics that work year-round.

The clothes we are going to buy from now on will be comfortable, and fit our new way of living. Sure, there will be weddings, funerals, but limited festivities and few parties for showing off.

As a former fashion editor, I know that the (mostly) men running the print business love fashion coverage because it places attractive women on pages that would otherwise be filled with bad news, deaths, no end in sight to coronavirus, debt and government shortcomings. Currently, most of the public remain reluctant to leave home, in spite of the easing of lockdown. A quarter are not wanting to go to a restaurant, pub or even the hairdresser until after September and 51 per cent say they are not considering a foreign holiday until 2021, so what do they need new clothes for?

It’s difficult to keep readers eager to spend money on a new pair of summer sandals or a dress, when what’s being offered this year isn’t that different from last. Only one in ten readers want their old work-life balance back – working from home is gaining traction – and the incentive to spend when your audience is limited to family and friends is greatly reduced.

If writing about fashion (the old in-person way) generated huge waste and pollution, producing clothes for the masses isn’t exactly doing planet Earth any favours either. The revelation that one of the UK’s most successful fashion retailers, Boohoo, was using workers (mostly women) who weren’t even paid the minimum wage (some receiving less than £4 an hour), has appalled the government and led the Home Office to ask the National Crime Agency to investigate the clothing factories of Leicester. Boohoo has pledged to investigate its supply chain.

There were Covid-19 cases in some premises – although the council said the outbreaks could not be linked to one source – as the city faced a local lockdown, a terrible blow for the city’s business community. Further financial losses could result in more redundancies and closures. The demand for cheap “fast fashion” in recent years, driven by young women, has seen Leicester’s fortune rise, but at awful human cost.

A local MP claimed there could be as many as 10,000 “slaves” working in the 200 garment factories in Leicester. In the past, there have been numerous official inspections, reports and recommendations, resulting in few convictions and no real changes – so will this time be any different? Ironically, the young women who are the main customers for BooHoo’s cheap frocks and skimpy tops are the same age group who flock to rallies protesting about the environment – who fail to see a link between fashion and pollution. The youthful protesters complaining about Britain’s links to the slave trade in recent weeks also fail to see that modern slavery still exists in the UK, propping up the garment industry.

Boohoo’s shares tumbled by more than £2bn this week – before bouncing back by around £700m – which signals a lack of confidence in the future of the fashion industry overall. The company owns a host of other brands including Nasty Gal, Coast, Karen Millen, Oasis and Warehouse, many of which cater to the mainstream market.

If women’s fashion is suffering, the same is true of menswear. This week, Brooks Brothers, the legendary American clothing chain whose clothes were used for the Mad Men TV series, has gone bust. Working from home means that smart suits and ties are redundant. Sales of suits have dropped by three quarters and Marks & Spencer says tie sales are negligible.

There will always be a rich and powerful clientele for made to measure suits, but overall, the demise of the formal workplace is bad news for the garment industry, from shirt makers and suit makers to UK textile mills.

If we’re dressing more casually, it’s possible to recycle the same clothing from year to year. Even the fashion press has had to admit that there’s nothing new to talk about – the other week one editor decided “track pants and gym wear are back”. Did they ever go away?

Up to now, a youth-driven appetite for fast fashion has kept the industry afloat. Two weeks ago, the bosses and co-founders of Boohoo, Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane, were put in line for huge bonuses – if the share price had risen they would have received £50m each. Now, the Kamani family has lost £210m. But the big losers will be the millions of workers connected to the industry at every level – from machinists and pattern cutters, through to sales assistants and retailers.

It’s best to view the lavish films showcasing Paris couture as a sign that a large part of the fashion industry is in its death throes. They signify a business built on waste at the top end with scant regard for human rights at the other.

Why doesn’t the government insist (as with cigarette packets) that all garments made in the UK carry a mandatory label, signifying they have been produced by workers paid (at least) the legal minimum. Fashion needs to clean up it’s act.