The Pace of Fashion 2021

Last month in The Guardian, Jess Cartner-Morley wrote an article about the pace of fashion in 2021.  She said, “Goodbye fast fashion, hello slow fashion. The age of the flash-in-the-pan trend is over; the lifespan of the trends that matter is now counted in years, not months.”  Well having worked in the fashion industry for more than 30 years, I will believe it when I see it.  

Slow fashion definitely charts a different course. It is about looking agreeably current, rather than up-to-the-minute. It is about nailing the hemline or the dress shape that defines the decade, rather than the season. It keeps one eye on fashion, but its feet on the ground, remembering that clothes are not disposable.  All of that may be true, but there are thousands and thousands of people who depend on the fashion industry and while the pandemic has no doubt impacted or even stopped some things in fashion, it does go on.   

Fashion is not like your computer, however.  You know that thing when something really complicated goes wrong, and the first thing you do is turn it off and then on again? And sometimes, it works? Well, that’s kind of what has happened to fashion. It’s had a reset. Fashion was on pause for the pandemic, but now it is back on – and it’s better than it was before. 

It was a jolt to the system when the switch flipped off: production stopped, stores closed, catwalks went dark.  Without shop windows to gaze into, people shopped our own closets instead, rediscovering joy in what we already had. The resolutions many of us had been trying to make about buying fewer clothes were a whole lot easier to stick to when trips into town, and parties, were out of the question.  

Cartner-Morley contends that as the fashion machine slowly restarts, it is finding a new, slower pace. Designers who were producing four collections a year have cut back to two. Smaller brands are adopting a batch-production model, taking orders in advance: if 45 dresses are ordered then 45 are produced, in the sizes needed, and nothing goes to waste. This means a delay between the day you place your order, and the day you get your dress – but maybe that’s OK.  

Slow fashion still has trends and is still fun and exciting… it’s just that they stick around, long enough for you to get a sensible amount of wear out of a piece of clothing.  Slow fashion is about big-picture fashion, which changes gradually.  It is the basics and let’s face it, there’s nothing wrong with good solid basics that you can dress up or dress down.  

There will still be fashion, and fashion shows, and fun fashion…just maybe not quite as fast as before the pandemic…but let’s keep it going because there are lots of people ready to get back to work.