Will We Ever Dress Up Again?

Will I ever feel like getting dressed up again? When I first started writing for Heyday, I mentioned how desperate I was to get back into one particular pink sequin midi skirt that has hung idly in my wardrobe since lockdown set the dress code for 2020. In recent weeks, though, I’ve begun to look at this much-loved item more as an archive piece that offers a tangible reminder of who I used to be rather than one which will help me reassert my sense of self in the coming weeks and months. That’s not to say I don’t want to look nice or well put together, but I wonder will I ever feel like getting dressed up again the way I once did almost every day? Is my wardrobe destined to become a museum piece, the relic of a retro version of myself?

The desire, or lack of it, to get dressed up isn’t just an emotional quandary, it’s a practical predicament too, because the adrenaline rush I used to get from shopping has dissolved in tandem with the atmosphere in the city centre. I drove into town two weeks ago for the first time in months to “browse”. There might as well have been tumbleweed blowing across Grafton Street for all the ambience that existed there, and stores were as empty as the Forty Foot since the bathing ban was enforced. I should have been euphoric, really, to have rails of clothes all to my fashion-loving self, but in fact it made me feel listless and apathetic. It sounds ridiculous, but I missed the crowds, the queues and the myriad of faces. Like swimming and running, fashion unites many women with their “tribe”. In certain stores (Cos for instance), there’s an unspoken sense of community and an automatic affiliation among shoppers there. I look subtly at what they’re wearing, they cast a curious eye at what I have on. Admiring and being admired by the other women who shop alongside me is as much a part of the experience as rifling through the rails, and I missed it. I also missed those magical moments in the dressing room when whatever it is I’ve tried on makes me suddenly feel as if I’ve grown five inches and lost as many pounds; you know those times when you step inside a changing room feeling ordinary and emerge spellbound instead, like Lucy when she walks into the wardrobe and out the other side into Narnia?

I began to wonder why I was bothering – clearly nobody else was. Plus I had no real reason to buy something new to wear – no office outings to look forward to, no fashion events to dress for, no dinner with friends to plan for – and I’ve never been one to buy clothes simply for the kudos of having them. My wardrobe has always been a workhorse not ornamentation. I guess “popping” into town that day was an attempt to do something “normal”, to retrieve an aspect of my pre-lockdown life. But lining up to gain entry into a store, wearing a claustrophobic face mask, passing the time of day politely with the sales assistant through a plexiglass protective sheet, sanitizing my hands on the way in and out, and seeing the entrances to changing rooms shielded with black ropes rather than filled with enthusiastic shoppers made me feel more alienated from my old existence than if I’d stayed home.

There’s no motivation to splash out on something ostentatious when you’re surrounded by the signifiers of sickness and fear.

I’m obviously not the only woman who feels this way in the new normal because reports are rife about the shift in women’s shopping habits – with internet sales soaring – and how likely they are to be permanent, but has there also been a lasting transformation in how women dress? Yes, we’ve all been relying more heavily on athleisure wear, and many of us have given up the ghost of skinny jeans, but has occasion wear actually become redundant? Will party wear be an old-fashioned notion before we know it? Could fancy dresses possibly look foolish going forward? In an interview with CNBC, Aneesha Sherman, senior analyst of European general retail at American investment firm Bernstein, explains that the one big structural change likely to affect people’s shopping habits over the next few years is the lack of occasions for which to buy new clothes in the absence of large-scale events such as concerts, weddings and foreign holidays. Of course occasions are huge prompters for women to shop. Indeed in 2017, Drapers – fashion retail’s business-to-business magazine – reported on the “long line of brands and retailers expanding into occasionwear…[and] the interest in trend-driven occasionwear.” It’s always been where the money is, but can those labels built on fantasy frocks and dreamy diaphanous gowns, like Temperley London, Rixo and Love Shack Fancy, survive let alone thrive in a post-pandemic world?

According to Vanessa Friedman, fashion director of The New York Times, “History and human nature prove that we will dress up again.” She qualifies this optimistic outlook with, “What that looks like is the real question.” We all understand how the way we dress is wrapped tightly up with how we perceive ourselves and how we want others to perceive us, but Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen pinpointed this notion perfectly when she explained, “For me fashion is an expression of art that is very closely related both to me and to my body. I see it as an expression of identity combined with desire, moods and a cultural setting.”

Cultural context is key to fashion, and I’m not just referring to fashion in the macro sense, but in the circumstances of your life and mine. During the Celtic Tiger years, the zeitgeist was one of affluence, extravagance and glamour, so women shopped like characters from Sex and the City.

When the recession hit, discretion was in and gratuitousness out, so in-your-face labels like Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana were swapped for more circumspect choices like Marni and Tod’s (for those who could still afford luxury goods).

Over the past five years, picking up pieces in charity shops and vintage stores has had far more fashion kudos attached to it than placing an order for Net-A-Porter’s finest. We dress to suit the global spirit as much as our own personal mood.

So what’s coming next? How will women want to define and present themselves post-Covid-19? As Freedman explains, there is no answer to this question yet, but “It’s going to be the irrational, emotional pull of a… something. The gut punch of recognition that comes from seeing a new way to cast yourself. One that signals” Yes, I have changed. Yes, things are different.” Right now, we’re simply in limbo as we wait for a new wave of thinkers and creatives to define for us how the future of fashion will look. It will undoubtedly involve sustainability and inclusivity, but beyond that it’s yet to take any tangible shape.

It’s my birthday in a few weeks and this will be my first occasion outing since lockdown. Until I feel more settled within this new normal and more sure of how I want to mark myself out within it, I’m saving the sequinned skirt, parking any more shopping trips, and pulling out my black Prada evening trousers. They’re the perfect transitional piece, and I don’t mean for the change in seasons that’s ahead, but the change in vogue that’s upon us.

Read more of Marie’s articles on style during COVID…
Do We Still Have Fashion , The New Normal and Pan(dem)ic Buying

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