From Homewear to Officewear
There’s a legion of investors out there who think coronavirus will change the world forever. It’s a far-fetched idea on the consumer side, but corporate bureaucracies are indeed thinking twice about some of their entrenched, costly inertias.
Jetting around the world for the sake of a handshake seems needless with Zoom Video these days, and staff performance doesn’t correlate with a dress code. The working world continues to trend away from formal suits and uniforms, now at an accelerated pace.
Investors are loading up on possible beneficiaries of a paradigm shift. The Zoom trend could stick, and Levi Strauss could sell more jeans. “I don’t think we’re going to get people wearing yoga pants to the office, but a sharp blazer and some denim? Yeah, it’s totally appropriate,” said Kontoor chief executive Scott Baxter.
If a fashion retailer has an online presence, it’s still offering steep discounts to keep customers interested. Levi Strauss hasn’t engaged in price cuts, drawing on a three-hundred-million-dollar credit facility instead. It hasn’t tracked the recent market rally, but it is drawing clues from the recovery China.
It seems things are getting back to normal over there, and women, in particular, are bored of the same quarantine outfits. There’s been a spike in fringe fashion. There could be another “era of expression” on the way, with a post-corona world all about consumers re-finding their identities. Sounds like an opportunity!
