Women’s Fashion Liberation in a Post-Pandemic World

Women have been subjected to outfits that are restrictive for years. They contort our bodies into socially acceptable shapes, lift our breasts to otherwise unimaginable heights, nip us in at the waist, and add a couple of inches to our height.

However, this year, the pandemic has helped us ditch some of these expectations. Underwired bras have been pushed to the back of the drawer – our boobs are freed from jail. What an upshot of this crazy pandemic!

 

A sign of the times

Fashion has long been known to reflect the times in which it evolves. The 1920’s flappers celebrated post-war indulgence. Women of the 1980s donned shoulder-padded power suits as they entered typically masculine roles for the first time. So, 2020 fashion evidently reflects the shrunken lives, the reduced jobs, and the ‘on hold’ future plans. What we can take comfort from is simply being comfortable.

 

Caring for others

It is no wonder. We all want to wrap our nearest and dearest up and keep them as safe as possible. If we can have our loved one's arms around us, trying our best to feel comfort is all that we can do. Our clothing is becoming our daily hugs. Tracksuits, lounge wear, puffer jackets… they're all based on our need for this comforting feeling that we seek.

 

Helping us through

These choices of clothing are helping us through the monotony of days, weeks, months… maybe even years of uncertainty that we are facing. We no longer need to change from office attire to night-out wear. Everything is merging into one and we’re staying in the same place. Quite often the office desk is also the dining room table.

 

Women’s bodies are winning

We are feeling the need of wanting our bodies to just ‘be’ as they are. Gone is our tolerance for the uncomfortable. Some will even go so far as saying that comfort is the sign of the affluent – those that do not mind how they are perceived. Is that not how it should be? Something tells me that the way that we see fashion is changing. And it is certainly influenced by the pandemic. At the end of the day, we do not know what the full effects of the pandemic will be on our clothing choices. What we do know is, that we know how comfortable we can be, and we may not want to head back to the days of underwire.