Missing Your Fine Collection Due To The Coronavirus Pandemic? Hang on!

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the fashion industry has stalled. Stores are shut and fashion weeks have been canceled and while shopping from online stores still goes on, the industry has still taken a major hit. A major chunk of the Indian fashion industry belongs to women’s apparel and clothing for women and since the industry is on lockdown, the production of new designs has been stalled for the foreseeable future.   Indian clothing for women is majorly dependent on occasion wear and since the pandemic is preventing the largescale celebrations of occasions, there is no widescale change in the fashion industry.  As many retail stores are temporarily or permanently closing their doors for customers, online shopping for women’s apparel has certainly gone up by a great margin. Another contributing factor to this is the unavailability of the trial of clothes in physical shops, but there is a downside to this. Indian apparel is something that we prefer to buy after seeing the finished product and shopping for that online may prove to be quite difficult as customers have no idea of how the final product looks. In spite of the one drawback, online shopping for women’s apparel is an alternative that women opt for.  While we miss the experience of raiding stores and buying new clothes of different patterns, styles, and designs, the fashion industry is trying to keep up with the changing situations. Many brands for women’s clothing have come up with masks matching their apparel and a sale of ready to wear clothes. While clothing is not considered as a part of essential commodities, it comprises a huge chunk of the countries revenue and hence it is expected that the industry will be allowed to resume soon.  Many Indian designers, especially those of women’s apparel are practitioners of slow fashion, i.e. the one item of clothing being worked on by multiple people before reaching the final wearer, and this will help create employment once the industry resumes. Indian women’s apparels are timeless and are in demand throughout the year and it will be easier to gain back the customer base once the industry resumes. As of now, a wide range of women’s apparel is readily available in online stores. The one positive outcome is that this break has given designers the chance to recalibrate and rethink the direction in which Indian fashion is heading. A “Handmade in India” campaign has been started in order to integrate ethnic and local designs, done by local craftsmen into the designs and styles of our apparels. Handcrafted products will have more value in a post COVID world and will hence garner more price on sale abroad.  On the other hand, when we look for Indian women’s apparel specifically, there are more indigenous and individual websites that sell a wide variety of occasion wear. Designer specific websites like Ritu Kumar, Rohit Bal, Anita Dongre and more have high-end clothes available for sale on their personal websites. For more casual, ready to wear women’s apparel, multiple online stores exist, and they sell all of the latest trends and designs. Meanwhile, there are so many online websites that have all kinds of women’s clothing available. There are classic websites like Myntra, Amazon, Ajio, etc that have a wide range of clothing for women.  Shopping from them may not provide us with the authentic store shopping experience but the quality and size of the clothes can be judged using the size chart and customer reviews. This way, we also get a much wider range of products, and consequentially have more options to choose from. A few online stores are Utsav Fashion, House of Indya, Biba, Craftsvilla, etc. Image Credit: Papaya Simple google searches on women’s clothing will provide a ginormous list of online stores that sell readymade and trendy apparel.  Meanwhile, even though it seems insignificant to dress up while staying at home or for working from home, it is important for us to put in at least a little effort into our appearance as this has a way of drastically improving our mood and helping us get a change from the routine we have been living since the past five months of lockdown. 

• Dressing up for work or even otherwise will provide us with a necessary change from the mundane routine that we have accustomed ourselves to. 
• A change from daily pajamas will also help us boost productivity as with more outgoing clothes, the urge to laze around goes away and results in a nudge towards getting more productive work done. 
• This is also a great time to experiment with the clothes you already own if you want to change up your fashion style. New items can be ordered from online stores and can be mixed and matched with old items of clothing to create and experiment with new styles. 
• Dressing up also helps relieve anxiety for many people and helps calm them down. It also means that we will be fresh the entire day and give our hundred percent to work and other activities. 
• A final plus side to getting ready is that it gives us amazing. Opportunity to do photoshoots and update our Instagram feeds. You can do these photoshoots with family, friends, and others (provided all safety measures are followed). 

It is okay to miss browsing new collections of clothing in stores but there are sure-fire alternatives to this that in some ways do have their own benefits. The pandemic may have changed the way we normally live but there are ways we can adapt and thrive in these new circumstances too.