How Working From Home Changed Wardrobes Around the World

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.”