Written By: Lisa Bladh

These days, whenever we talk about the future (or anything for that matter), it’s practically impossible to avoid the elephant in the room: COVID-19. This is of course also true for the world of fashion. The question on everyone's tongue atm is how is this pandemic affecting us a how will we adapt for the future!

Right now, it's safe to say non-essential spending is taking a serious hit as an effect of the restrictions imposed and the economic climate (who is surprised?).

As much as we love the upkeep of our wardrobes, it is inevitably a part of the non-essential spending. Retail sales are declining at a super fast rate all over the world; in the UK alone they are expected to go down by the crazy number of £11.1 billion, which is the equivalent of the three market leaders’ combined sales. What many big players have done is switch their production to goods like scrubs, sanitizer and masks to lift some weight off our healthcare systems’ shoulders (go them!).

But even though some factories are running, the crisis has still forced a huge chunk of factory workers into even deeper poverty and vulnerability. If anything, the balance the fashion industry at large is dancing between the environmental and social threats of overconsumption and knowing that the most vulnerable workers are the first to go when sales are declining is more apparent than ever.

This crisis has affected OhSevenDays in a noticeably different way. We cherish our in-house production team more than ever as we can continue production with one or two workers in the factory at a time. The versatility of this has even made us ponder if maybe producing in-house with smaller batches is the future of fashion (how we would love that!).

As we can see basically everywhere, a digital presence has become more vital than ever. Our website has always been our flagship store, but this has been more emphasized than ever and we are super pumped to also see our online community (you guys!) thriving!

Safe to say, things will not be exactly the same when all of this is over. And we like to be optimistic about that! As Anna Wintour so neatly put it in an interview with Niomi Campbell: “it's an opportunity for all of us to look at our industry and
to look at our lives, and to rethink our values”.

We hope that this massive disruption in more or less every aspect of our lives will bring about a new perspective on our habits and practices, especially when it comes to fashion. Maybe this shift can make us rethink how we look at clothes, both at an individual and organizational level.

Resources:
- BBC “Coronavirus: Why the fashion industry faces an 'existential crisis' :
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52394504 2020-05-23
- Entrepreneur India ”The Impact of COVID-19 On the Fashion Design Industry” :
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/350190 2020-05-23
- Fashion Revolution ‘The impact of COVID-19 on the people who make our clothes’: