COVID-19 and its Impact on Fashion Magazines
COVID-19 and its Impact on Fashion Magazines
Dr. Brendan Edwards, Librarian and Department Head, ROM Library & Archives, and Dr. Alexandra Palmer, Nora E. Vaughan Senior Curator, Global Fashion & Textiles discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the fashion print industry.
Normally, the library at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is open to the public where they can enjoy the archives in the reading room, but with COVID-19 this is no longer an option. Dr. Brendan Edwards now spends his days trying to deliver this experience digitally, helping the public out and answering any questions they may have regarding the books and articles kept at the ROM.
In this time, he’s also reflected on the shift fashion magazines have taken due to the challenges the pandemic has placed on their production. One of these challenges is that before COVID-19, magazines depended on photographers, make-up artists, and on-location shoots for their images. Doing these shoots are no longer an option due to social distancing and travel restrictions caused by the pandemic.
In the examples Dr. Edwards shows Dr. Palmer, there’s a clear difference in the covers of several notable fashion magazines before and after the pandemic started. Before COVID-19, these magazines featured high-profile actors and recognizable models looking glamorous and wearing beautiful garments. The images were colourful and bright.
By the summer of 2020, there was a large shift. Gone were the celebrities, replaced by visuals of hope and the faces of frontline workers who bravely faced the pandemic head-on. Many fashion magazine covers also featured illustrations and graphics, an easier alternative than doing photoshoots with restrictions in place.
Through this pandemic, it’s clear that fashion magazines are adaptable and still have a place in culture despite the notion that ‘print is dead’. Magazine covers in the wake of COVID-19 will be looked back on as a screenshot of a time of extreme uncertainty.
Watch the full discussion here: https://www.rom.on.ca/en/rom-at-home/experts-objects/fashion-research-and-the-rom-library-lessons-from-covid-19