1918 x 2021: Global Fashion in the Age of Pandemics

If 2019 fashion was all about the bike shorts and slip dresses, then 2020-2021 is nothing but the mask. While COVID-19 has transformed fashion’s role from adornment and fantasy to one of public safety, this is not the first time fashion has had to respond to a pandemic. This is the story of how the 1918 “Spanish Flu” Influenza Pandemic changed the meaning of fashion throughout the world, and how creativity — from fashion designers to ordinary people — can survive, and even thrive, in the darkest of circumstances. Led by fashion historian Caroline Elenowitz-Hess