Of pedicures and Prada: How coronavirus could change our working wardrobes
Vogue Australia’s Edwina McCann on what working from home is doing to our fashion sense
I wondered if I was committing fashion sacrilege by teaming my Valentino shirt with a pair of Lululemon leggings that were hidden, newsreader-style, under the desk for my late-night video call with Vogue editors-in-chief from around the world hosted by Anna Wintour.
As we all adjust to the new ways of working remotely and perfecting our teleconferencing etiquette and wardrobes, I am learning a new form of balance when it comes to fashion and grooming. The home pedicure can wait, and I doubt I will be needing a pair of high heels anytime soon, but shocking-red lipstick has become a new must-have.
On our second Monday working from home, Vogue’s deputy editor Jess illuminated the screen with her smiling red lips. The rest of us were dressed in sweats with the camera off. She confessed that she was wearing fierce red lipstick because doing so was the only way to convince her toddler son to brush his teeth in the mornings. He will brush only if she paints. The red lip was so cheery that we decided to start “Lipstick Fridays”, which has quickly become a Vogue team working-from-home tradition.
During World War II, nylon stockings and red lips came to symbolise optimism and the last of life’s luxuries; a strong shade released in 1941 was marketed as Victory Red. Three weeks into working from home the role that fashion and grooming plays in our lives is evolving. Indeed, the purpose of fashion, which is the second most polluting industry after oil, and the way it operates with endless new collections, wasteful stock, questionable global supply chains, and excessive travel, is being fiercely debated.
There is a lot of discussion about what the industry will look like, what it should look like, indeed what we will all look like, when this is over. Fashion is a reflection of historical changes and adaptation.
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“Fashion is part of the daily air and it changes all the time, with all events.”
— Diana Vreeland, legendary Vogue editor
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Yet I often find myself admiring a painting, trees through a window or a plant in the background behind the speaker on the Zoom screen rather than what a speaker is wearing. This week I have attended teleconference board meetings for the Westpac Scholarship fund, the Australian Ballet, crisis group meetings with Australian designers, the Australian Fashion Council, and of course regular Vogue team meetings. Then there was that international Vogue editors-in-chief meeting which, if you wanted to rate the top reasons for driving Zoom anxiety dressing, would have to be up there.
In each context I found the approach to telecasting wardrobes reasonably consistent and defined by an external or internal dress code. Internal staff meetings in the mornings tend to be more relaxed and often in sweats. Catch-ups with clients or board meetings are dressed, at least from the waist up, with earrings on and makeup and hair done.
What’s fascinating is being transported into homes I’ve never visited belonging to board colleagues and Vogue editors. It is amazing how much you can learn about someone from the background, and how many family members and pets I have now met.
So what will this mean for the way we dress when we can all come out of hibernation? In the corporate world fashion is often used like armour, it takes on a steely, structured guise with everyone coiffured. Now that we have all seen one another’s cupboards, pot plants and pets, I think acceptable workwear dressing will become more casual. But in more creatively oriented spheres where so far I have witnessed people more emotional, perhaps less job secure, I think the opposite will happen and self-expression through clothing and decorative jewellery may explode — once it can be afforded again. And even though we are all about to become experts in colour treatments and hair cutting, I don’t think it will stop us rushing back to the hairdresser as soon as it is safe to do so.
Edwina McCann is editorial director of Vogue Australia, Vogue Living and GQ.