Sophie Wood (Manchester Metropolitan University). Clothes in Lockdown: Dressing for the Screen or the Self?

Before the lockdown home was thought of as a private space, now with more of us at home more of the time home has also become a place of work, a gym, a bar, a restaurant and a place to relax, often rendered semi-public through the use of a screen. Group fitness, work meetings and social gatherings are now mediated through screens making our private space not so private after all. Fashion is often referred to as the barrier between the public and the private, demarking the public world outside and the private, covered body beneath them. Dressing in public and private also came with different rules and expectations — loungewear in the office would not be acceptable, and one wouldn’t usually wear a cocktail dress and full make up to stay in, but these are different times.

Sophie Wood>>