A precaution against spreading infection and a signifier of being a good citizen, the face mask may yet give new meaning to a ‘must-have’ accessory
One particle of Covid-19 typically measures 100 nanometers in diameter. That is a ten-thousandth of a millimetre; invisible, in other words. But the virus has transformed how the world looks: the empty streets, the trail-free blue skies, the rainbow-decked windows – and the clothes we wear.
Clothes – not fashion, but clothes – have been on newspaper front pages for weeks. The public health and political crisis around PPE has filled our screens with arresting images of NHS workers in robes and visors. This is a human drama on an enormous scale, and in our highly visual culture, it calls for an image more vivid and more emotionally resonant more than any line graph.
Masks are, suddenly, all around us. Our lockdown wardrobes, a sartorial journal of emotions – first the run on tracksuits, then the pivot to video-call power dressing – is shifting into a new gear. With every passing day, my Instagram feed features fewer sweatshirts and more masks. As the world begins looking ahead to a post-lockdown world, face masks look set to play an increasingly central role in our lives.