How Working From Home Changed Wardrobes Around the World
The New York Times
It wasn’t all sweats and leggings. A whirlwind tour of how the pandemic affected what we wore, from India to Italy.
Have months of self-isolation, lockdown and working from home irrevocably changed what we will put on once we go out again? For a long time, the assumption was yes. Now, as restrictions ease and the opening up of offices and travel is dangled like a promise, that expectation is more like a qualified “maybe.” But not every country’s experience of the last year was the same, nor were the clothes that dominated local wardrobes. Before we can predict what’s next, we need to understand what was. Here, eight New York Times correspondents in seven different countries share dispatches from a year of dressing. Retail reports, fashion magazines and personal accounts agree: When working from home this past year, many Italian women found solace in knitwear. Those who could afford it favored cashmere wool knitwear, the kind Italian Vogue called “a luxury version of classic two-piece sweats.” Fabio Pietrella, the president of Confartigianato Moda, the fashion arm of the association of artisans and small businesses, said that while consumer trends indicated a shift from “a business look to comfort,” it was “not too much comfort.” Italian women, he said, had eschewed sportswear for “quality knitwear” that guarantees freedom of movement but with “a minimum of elegance.”
In the months leading up to the election, Donald J. Trump sat for a slew of casual and unconventional conversations with podcasters and streamers. We watched them all.
In the last year, museums, book festivals, arts journals and other organizations have experienced bitter discord over what qualifies as tolerable speech about the conflict and its combatants.
John Krasinski may not have the raw energy of Glen Powell, but a collaboration with the stylist Ilaria Urbinati has paid huge dividends.
The star of Jacques Audiard’s showy new musical about a trans Mexican crime boss, Karla Sofía Gascón, adds soul to the melodrama. Zoe Saldaña also shines.
The powerhouse soprano, already a company stalwart at 37, still seems to be figuring out a character whose moods change on a dime.
The artist’s works are the subject of two New York shows, at the Metropolitan Museum and the Jack Shainman Gallery.
The YouTube star has a coffee company, a podcast and a new collaboration with Warby Parker. One thing she isn’t doing much? Posting.
The FX series strives to capture the complexity of its subject: the long sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.
Nora Holt was a pioneer of Chicago’s Black classical music scene. A friend of Josephine Baker, she later became a blues singer in Parisian nightclubs.
In the film “Conclave,” the costume designer Lisy Christl clothed an army of catty cardinals, from their miters down to their quirky glasses.
The sprawling PST festival of more than 70 exhibitions doesn’t quite live up to its theme of art and science colliding. But there is a handful of impressive entries.