Lockdown Impact and upcoming trends in the Fashion and Lifestyle Industry Ft. Shiuli Chakravorty

Although we cannot yet keep our finger on a point and declare the changes that will take place in the fashion and lifestyle industry after the lockdown, but we can surely create a mind image of what this industry will look like after the lockdown has been lifted up. To understand the topic more briefly Fashion Herald interviewed Shiuli Chakravorty, a fashion and lifestyle influencer and blogger, and got a valuable insight through her many years of experience in the field.

“The small boutiques, selling designer wear will face problems as 90% of their sales used to depend upon the Fashion shows and exhibitions.”

Shiuli says that due to the lockdown, the designers will face a set back as fashion shows and exhibitions have come to a halt and even after the lockdown is removed these exhibitions, shows or launches won’t be happening any time soon. According to her knowledge, the most effected ones are the designers whose sale largely depended upon the fashion events.

The virus has spread considerably among the high class society, says Shiuli, because initially the events, parties and launches were not stopping and now in the lockdown period, everything has come to sudden break.

Talking about the most affected areas of the fashion and lifestyle industry, Shiuli tells us that the Skin care brands and FMCG brands are facing a lot of struggle. She believes that the fashion and luxury beauty brands are not able to give their products on websites like Amazon and Nykaa due to low sales. The only available options are the average FMCG products that people commonly use. She says that the sales of these brands are very low at this point. Most of the products of these brands were purchased by salons and beauty market, but now everything is at a halt. FMCG beauty luxury brands and salons are suffering a lot during this time. Although, she shares, the brands like Spencer’s and Big Bazaar are gaining profit right now as they are home delivering lifestyle products and participating in various campaigns.

“But there is a positive side to it as well. I believe that this is an excellent time to build up one’s portfolio and work on oneself.”

As a silver lining, Shiuli shares the positive side of the lockdown with Fashion Herald by informing us that on regular days, people from the fields of fashion and lifestyle industry do not get the time to do things that are much needed for their career build up. As a model, influencer, brand or fashion photographer, this is an excellent time to sit back, relax and complete the pending workload, build up a good portfolio to showcase your work, edit those old pictures and post them, create a good website for your work, learn something valuable, give elaborate details of your previous collaborations to create a strong presence online.

“The ones who uses this time intelligently to create a better presence online and build up a strong portfolio will be prepared to get a lot of work once the lockdown is removed.”

Sharing the impact on the world of fashion and lifestyle influencers with Fashion Herald, Shiuli says that currently it is not a good time for influencers to write product reviews as the customers will not be able to buy the products and there will be no call to action. At this time the brands are not collaborating with influencers because brands are suffering financial loss so if they start to give free products they will face a setback. Therefore the influencers are not getting much collaboration these days and even after the lockdown people will take time to get back in place.

“Fashion is finding a way to survive online by various challenges like the pillow challenge and quarantine looks challenge.”

Shiuli says that online people and celebrities are challenging each other to do quarantine looks or stay at home looks, in fact quarantine looks is trending among influencers these days.

As a conclusion, Shiuli shares that although we cannot really tell what and how things will change exactly but we know many things will hamper. The e-commerce will definitely bloom during this period as people have a tendency to keep on shopping.