Celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow appeared to echo the concerns of an industry – admittedly, one uniquely prone to bouts of hysteria – when she posted a photograph of herself wearing a mask en route to Paris. She captioned the selfie: “Paranoid? Prudent? Panicked? Placid? Pandemic? Propaganda? Paltrow’s just going to go ahead and sleep with this thing on the plane. I’ve already been in this movie. Stay safe. Don’t shake hands. Wash hands frequently.”
Side note: Are celebrity face-mask selfies the new sheet-mask selfies? First, let’s rewind to Milan, where things started to get “a bit Bird Box”, as one editor deemed the reaction, right around the time when Giorgio Armani cancelled its show “due to the recent developments of coronavirus in Italy”. An email marked “urgent”, sent to guests at 7.50am on Sunday 23 February, detailed that the show would be livestreamed in front of an empty teatro and that the decision had been taken “to safeguard the wellbeing of all [Mr Armani’s] invited guests by not having them attend crowded spaces.”
As the mayor of Milan announced that offices and schools would close in response to two deaths from the virus in northern Italy, rumours began to circulate that Linate airport would be shuttered later that evening. Editors on the front row at the first show of the day, Ports 1961, desperately jabbed credit card details into their phones in attempts to change their flights. The virus almost overshadowed the unprecedented news that Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons would be joining forces as co-collaborators at Prada for spring/summer 2021.
When Dolce & Gabbana started its show – gasp! – on time, rather than observing the customary 30-minute delay that usually occurs at Italian fashion shows, we knew something was up. And, as the 121-look strong show came to a close (121. Count ‘em) frantic editors eschewed a trip backstage in favour of racing to the airport early to catch their flights. In the British Airways lounge, all anyone could talk about was that several American editors had decided to hire cars and make the 9-hour drive from Milan to Paris, instead of risking flights. Even Instagram wasn’t a distraction: many of the models, including Bella Hadid, had posted selfies wearing protective face masks from their planes.
British Vogue’s editors caught their flights back to London with no major disruption, though there were signs of unease at Linate: the check-in assistants taking our boarding cards at the gate insisted on a six-foot zone of inhibition, holding their arms out at right angles like traffic controllers, snatching the boarding cards, then virtually hurling them back at us before conceding entry. As I boarded the plane, a seated passenger wearing surgical gloves and a mask dropped their hand sanitiser on the aisle in front of me. I reached to pick it up, but she snatched it out of my hand with a look of fear. Coughs received frightened side-eye glances as we took our seats and tried to retain a sense of healthy British cynicism. But, when we landed at London City airport, no one was conducting temperature checks, which they had done when we had reached Milan. Were we worrying unnecessarily?
By the time I got to Paris on Monday afternoon, after having enjoyed a relatively empty Eurostar experience, reports were trickling in via text that buyers from Net-A-Porter.com and a number of other retailers who had been working in Milan had been advised not to come into their respective offices, nor to travel onwards to Paris. Nevertheless, the Dior show went ahead as scheduled at 2.30pm, though JJ Martin, the Milan-based editor-turned-entrepreneur who runs the colourful womenswear label La Double J, decided to cancel the dinner she was due to hold on Tuesday evening in celebration of her collaboration with the shoe designer Fabrizio Viti.
“On Monday evening, Fabrizio called me telling me the mood in Paris was very sombre, and very concerned, and so we felt it was not an appropriate time to be celebrating,” Martin said, in a call with British Vogue on Wednesday 26 February. “To be perfectly honest with you, I was not particularly nervous about coming to Paris. I think there is a little bit of hysteria, a little bit of a lack of education. But equally, when things like this happen, I am very much like: Go with the flow. When the universe is telling you to back down, don’t force it. I didn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable.”
Will the city be forced to abandon its remaining shows? The catwalk production supremo Alex de Betak, simultaneously announcing a renewed sustainability push on all the shows his team were working on, stressed that the situation was evolving when British Vogue spoke with him on Tuesday 25 February. “We as producers are discussing with all our clients who are worried, how we can propose the best hygiene solutions,” he said. “There have been warnings, but no cancellations. I am crossing my fingers, but I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
De Betak had made the decision to close his Shanghai office when the epidemic broke out, but work is starting again. “Our industry is so dependent on China, for manufacturing, production, shows, events, clients. [But] I don’t believe in panicking. I read the news that comes in every hour and I make up my mind. Of course, lots of our big projects in China are put on hold for now, which makes total sense.” As for Paris? “If [the virus] grew tomorrow, then probably common sense would be to revisit the reasoning behind putting that many people together in a room. It’s true I sadly wouldn’t be surprised if we have to revisit the decision again in the next few days for Fashion Week. It’s day by day.”
Still, brands are making arrangements. At the Lanvin show, held on Wednesday morning, the brand had face masks and hand sanitiser available for guests, as well as backstage for the models and hair and make-up teams. It was a similar story later that day, at Dries Van Noten, where suited and booted assistants offered face masks to guests upon arrival, and at Lemaire. Marine Serre went so far as to put them on her runway, and by Wednesday evening, people had started to post selfies of masks and glamorous rhinestone earring combinations. Meanwhile, Milan has postponed its design fair, Salone del Mobile – due to take place in April – until June. Shanghai Fashion Week, originally scheduled for the end of the March, has also been postponed.
And on the front row, editors are trading vitamin C sachets and avoiding the urge to recoil when someone blows their nose. Autumn/winter 2020’s biggest trend, then? Long live the air kiss.
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