‘We all need beauty now – even if we can’t afford it’
VALENTINO’S autumn ready-to-wear show a few months ago was a fleeting display of uncomplicated beauty. That runway spectacle, in the final days of a bustling, crowded Paris Fashion Week, may well have signalled the end of an era.
It was early March and the World Health Organization had not yet declared a pandemic.
The coronavirus was a long way from having killed more than a million people worldwide.
The fashion economy, indeed the world economy, hadn’t convulsed, leaving clothing factories quiet and legacy brands in bankruptcy, millions unemployed and countless families worried about their next meal.
Eight months ago, the City of Light still glowed. We could not imagine what was to come. Models in romantic confections walked a
