When I returned from Milan Fashion Week in February, the coronavirus had just begun to invade Italy and I was quarantined for two weeks. The day after I returned, my New York office was closed. As I write this article, I'm at the beginning of my fourth week of isolation. By these accounts, I haven't worn pants for a month.
Clarification: I didn't spend a month alone with underwear. My uniform only consists of leggings and tracksuits - which are technically pants, but not pants. No pair of jeans, velvet, terital. No kind of inelastic pants, no kind of pants that I couldn't fit.
This is my new normal. From a man who wears pants every day, I have become a man who fantasizes about a world where no one is forcing me into tight pipes. Now that my feet are used to feeling like sausages in a warm bakery, why would I want to wear pants? I'm not a masochist! I have tried to wear jeans several times and I fell to the ground early and was forcibly removed from my body.
And I'm not the only one resisting. Since many of us are staying indoors, people find it increasingly difficult to wear serious clothes.
So many tracksuits we are wearing, as sales have increased. But what happens when all of this is over? As history has proven, major crises (like a pandemic) can change the way we dress. For example, after World War II, pants became more commonplace for women who joined the workforce. But after women played masculine roles for years, over time they turned their eyes to more feminine silhouettes like those of Christian Dior.
After the Great Recession, wardrobes became more sporty. For a while, extravagance was considered taboo and as jobs became more flexible, so did work dress codes. But sportswear and home clothes have not yet been normalized. Remember girls who are criticized for wearing stereotypes or stereotypes about you. The fact that neither yours nor the thongs were part of my wardrobe says anything. Trends may change, but society is slowly evolving.
It is almost impossible to predict how the pandemic will change the way we dress. We do not know the end of this story. Will brand masks become a status symbol? Will we emerge from isolation as colorful maximalists who do not want to see more eyelashes? Or will our new fixation on purity make us minimalists? I want to know in the crutches will be allowed in the offices, but a large percentage of us will not go back to the office at all.
"I'll go where I want when this is over," a friend at Zoom told me. The risk will be lower, he explained. We'll just be happy to meet - thankful for every day we wake up and wear pants. Or not.
By Emilia Petrarca for The Cut
