The COVID-19 global pandemic is unlike anything we have seen before. The pandemic has affected everyone’s lives and decimated entire industries. The sheer volume of this crisis is just staggering. For the June/July 2020 issue of Vogue magazine, for the first time in 50 years, there is a still life photo of a rose on the cover with a message: Our Common Thread. Our common thread during this time is creativity, and especially for those who work in the fashion industry, many questions loom overhead of the future of fashion and fashion’s position in society that now looks so different.

One conversation which has emerged recently due to this pandemic was if Fashion Week should even exist anymore, an event which is the highlight of the fashion industry across many cities around the world each year. With the question of how long social distancing will be a part of our lives (which seems to be for the long haul at the moment), Fashion Week is an event that is as crowded as it gets… When this crisis began, it was the strangest Milan Fashion Week there could be: Giorgio Armani streamed his runway shows online with an empty room and models walking down the catwalk. The fashion industry has had to become extremely agile, more agile than anyone could ever imagine.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) chairman and designer, Tom Ford, is now collaborating with Vogue magazine’s editor in chief, Anna Wintour, in establishing a fund for those working in the fashion industry, A Common Thread, which supports people who are no longer working during this crisis, which includes seamstresses, tailors, embroiderers, and many more. If you have the means, please consider donating to this fund established by the CFDA, which is a 501(c)3. To donate, text THREAD to 44-321 or go to this link.

It’s a shocking time for many and it’s deeply unsettling when you consider the larger picture. Anna Wintour’s son, Charles Shaffer, an ER Doctor, contracted the virus after treating patients with the virus in the ICU. We must all do our best to continue social distancing and following our state and local guidelines.