The crisis in the fashion industry can have positive environmental effects

Many fashion companies are in deep economic crisis, in Sweden, clothing brands have gone bankrupt and, for example, Polarn O. Pyret and Brothers are going through corporate restructuring. At the same time, clothing production in many countries has stopped because of covid-19. Now, a global industry is cross-cutting, which has been booming over several years of boom.

- Now that trade is forced to close down, we are also forced to re-evaluate the role of consumption in our lives. If we need so much clothing, we know that there has been an overproduction of clothing and an over-establishment of companies in the industry, says Philip Warkander.

Many large fashion houses, such as Gucci, Balenciaga and Giorgio Armani, have currently switched parts of the business to make protective materials for the care. But that does not mean that the business is on ice. An article in the magazine Business of Fashion states that fashion creators like Giorgio Armani are working on upcoming collections, but the collections may be smaller than usual.

Smaller collections may suit the future predicted by Dutch trend guru Li Edelkoort, frequently employed by the fashion and beauty industries. She recently said that consumption is in quarantine and people will have to get used to a life with fewer things.

Recession is said to get both producers and consumers to choose the simple and useful, the question is whether history is repeated now?

"Fashion is about interpreting time in some sense and expressing or embracing a spirit of time," says Magdalena Pettersson Mc Intyre, associate professor at the University of Gothenburg, and continues.

- Something that often comes back is a little military fashion, uniforms, something practical. It is uniform, dimmed and simple, and collective rather than wanting to express oneself as an individual.

Fashion researcher Philip Warkander believes that the industry will first undergo a major crisis, but also a time of reflection and identity-seeking. For a time this means that the locally produced and sustainable are given a boost.

- It's about a new way of thinking about fashion, not large quantities, not trend-driven, but rather based on the taste and taste of clothes that are tailor-made for the individual consumer. Which could be the answer to the question that is being asked now: where is the courage going?