We know that fashion acts as a reflection of social trends and cultures of our societies. They are strongly imbued with the milestones of history and ride the waves of change following the currents.
And this year, fashion week is no exception to the rule!
The Coronavirus pandemic of 2020, and the significant consequences it had, has had its fallout on the world of haute couture design.
On the catwalks today one could notice the rise of the facial visor and facial mask as an esthetic feature. An element of daily life in many communities in Asia for decades, the facial mask has taken an enormous amount of time to develop in other continents.
At the end of the pandemic, logically, it had become fairly common to see sick people in Europe, America, Africa or Oceania, wearing surgical masks. The habit has become more common and natural, everyone having the memory of the transmission of this virus which stopped the entire planet for months.
But without it spreading to the point of becoming a fashion accessory like in Asia. And clearly not the case for visors, still for a long time reserved for workers.
As is often the case, the trend was born in alternative movements or so-called "working-class" neighborhoods where some young people recycled the many visors they found in the closets of their parents who had experienced the epidemic.
First an underground trend and often mocked at the beginning, after several years and appearing in multiple places around the world, creators seized the trend and added their personal touch. To finally put it on the models parading on the podiums of big brands!
Like pants in their time, worn by women after their participation in the war effort at the end of the world wars (wearing blue collar outfit), celebrating the success of the Suffragrettes, the visor reminds us how in 2020 with DIY and home printers, Humanity was able to organize itself to fight against a threat of which it had lost its memory at the time.
History marks our generations, our mentalities and our lifestyles and its influence is detectable in the smallest details of our ornaments and apparels, thus continuing its educational work, reminding us of the traumas of the past to avoid us to forget them ... too early.