Pakistan Fashion Industry and Coronavirus

Pakistan is among those countries where Coronavirus has hit the nation severely. Even though it wasn’t a surprise for the country as it is neighbors with China and Iran but still no one was prepared to face the pandemic. So, when the government announced partial shutdown and requested the people to avoid going out, Fashion industry responded immediately.

February is the time when all the major brands start launching their spring/summer collections and for that they start the designing and production processes months before. Everyone in the country anxiously awaits the launch to get hold of the designs they find best. All brands try to be as much innovative as possible, invest heavily in the advertisement campaigns and try to get hold of the famous models to be the face of their brand. But this year around things took a very wild turn. COVID-19 forced everyone to exercise social-distancing which led to huge drop in retail sale and crippled the supply chain worldwide. Imports and exports are badly affected. Apparel brands and retailers closed their production houses and outlets as part of social distancing.

Big names in the fashion industry started spreading their message by using their social media platform to create awareness among people. Karma one of the high end brands released a statement announcing that for the sake of safety for both the employees and the customers they would be implementing work from home policy and to provide customer support to cater to any of their queries they would provide virtual assistance. Customers can contact via email, phone calls, WhatsApp chatting, video conferencing on Facetime/Skype during the office hours.

Another big name of the industry Hassan Shehryar Yasin -HSY- released a statement assuring the customers that strict precautionary measures are taken in the studio as well as the design houses to ensure the heath and safety of the customers. Not only that the brand requested the clients to follow the precautionary measures released by WHO while visiting the studio and for the clients who are avoiding traveling and are practicing the social distancing virtual assistance would be provided where customers are given the facility of video consultation with HSY and his design team and free home delivery service would be provided.

Zara Shahjahan a designer known for her delicate, yet attractive and high-quality designs delayed the launch of lawn 2020 due to the critical situation and closed the outlets implementing the work from home policy. For orders and deliveries, the brand released a statement assuring that all the procedures to guarantee the safety are being adapted by their associate courier companies throughout the world as all the parcels are being sanitized and minimum human contact id being maintained throughout the supply chain.

Not only these brands but many others also have implemented the work from home policy and have closed their stores. Yes, this an uncertain situation where no one knows when all this would be over, but everyone is putting in their efforts to support each other and live until alive. People are criticizing the brands which announced the sale that they are being insensitive and are forcing people to go out for shopping but that is not true. All brands have specifically mentioned that all these sales and price reductions are only for the online shoppers. To be fair these brands spend so much on creating these amazing collections and if they go on sale (which is online only) that would help them to survive which will support E-Commerce and ultimately the economy. At the end the only remark I would like to add is that instead of backlashing the fashion brands by spreading the fake sensational news try to look at things positively and check the facts. Now is the time to act and support rather than spreading the hate.