A look into fashion shows during and after the COVID-19 pandemic: are digital fashion shows here to stay?

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic effects spread-out over all areas, and the fashion system was no exception. Within this system, we turn our attention towards the significant changes fashion shows have experienced to adapt to the situation, greatly due to their nature of live audience events. In this process of adaptation fashion shows embraced the digital world, at first with mere live broadcasts but as the pandemic situation evolved so did fashion shows evolve into new digital approaches. This paper presents an overview of the subject by examining how fashion shows took place during the different moments of the pandemic. We present our analysis in two acts: the initial act refers to the first year of the pandemic, when there were still no vaccines and the world experienced more and longer periods of lockdown; and the second act is the “post-vaccination phase”, a period which allowed greater flexibility in fashion events due to less rigid sanitary measures. At the finale we discuss the foreseeable future of fashion shows, based on the analysis of this two years and on how different global brands look at the future regarding this subject.