‘The waste and excess is more visible’: how coronavirus is shaking up fashion

The industry has been taken apart at the seams. Is this the end of lavish shows and packed front rows?

It was on the morning of 18 March, when Glastonbury was confirmed cancelled, that Sarah Gresty, BA course leader in fashion at Central Saint Martins (CSM), realised that the class of 2020 would be a graduating year unlike any other. That was when we thought: OK, this is only heading one way. After that, everything happened really fast. That evening many of the international students started getting sent home, and were literally grabbing their things from the studios and heading to the airport." Within days, all students were told that there would be no final show. It was traumatic," says Gresty. For many of them, that show is a moment they had been dreaming about since they were children."

I have spent the last week talking to class of 2020 graduates from all over the country, and a word I have heard time and again is heartbreaking". They made it all the way to the final year of fashion college, only to find themselves in the right place at the wrong time, with college paused before the show that was meant to launch them into the world. A final-year fashion show, after all, is a night like no other - think prom meets Absolutely Fabulous meets Frieze.