Protective face coverings have become this season’s must-have accessory among showgoers
The trend sweeping Paris fashion week, which looks poised to catch on globally, is not a hemline or a handbag but a new form of greeting: the upper-arm squeeze.
In the three weeks since the global carousel of fashion weeks began in New York, air kissing has fallen out of favour as anxiety over coronavirus has risen. In Paris, where the final stretch of catwalk shows runs until Tuesday, a brief but warm squeeze of the biceps – less formal than a handshake and yet without skin-to-skin contact, a move borrowed from the campaign trail playbook of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama – has established itself as the in-vogue “hello”.
As for the accessory of the season, there is no contest. The £54 Airinum Urban Air Mask 2.0, in which Gwyneth Paltrow posted a jokey Instagram selfie from her airplane seat to France this week, is sold out worldwide in onyx black (Paltrow’s choice), pearl pink and quartz grey.