These rallying cries did spark marginal change: Kering announced all of its shows would be carbon-neutral, the British Fashion Council announced a series of new measures and Swedish Fashion Council cancelled Stockholm Fashion Week altogether, halting production to brainstorm new, more sustainable alternatives. Business continued pretty much as usual, but by this point, the idea of fashion week as know it was already in flux.

Designers have found alternatives to fashion week in the past, too: Tom Ford has switched out physical shows for fashion films, Helmut Lang showed its FW20 collection as a Sunil Gupta-lensed lookbook and Happy 99 staged an entirely virtual fashion show. Meanwhile, heavy-hitters like Balenciaga and Marine Serre have been teaming with digital artists to create original, engaging campaigns, and Prada even tapped AI influencer Lil’ Miquela for an Instagram takeover. The coronavirus pandemic may be speeding up the process, but fashion’s pivot to digital has been on the cards for a while.

This could also mark real progress in terms of democratising the industry. When Digital Fashion Week launched in 2012, the goal was to spotlight international talent outside of the four global fashion capitals. Although seemingly on hiatus (the last schedule was announced in 2018, and organisers did not respond to a request for comment), the initiative mapped out a blueprint for digital fashion weeks which offered a platform to emerging designers, which could be replicated elsewhere.

Sure, it still takes creativity and contacts to nail exceptional shows, but a mass pivot to digital could work wonders for talented minds willing and able to get experimental.

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