How the Face Mask Took Over Fashion

Early into quarantine, Hillary Taymour, who runs the New York-based brand Collina Strada, channeled her energy into making masks. Back then, the fashion world could sense impending doom as everyone became forced shut-ins overnight. Who would be mad enough to buy anything but sweatpants and house slippers, the thinking went, when we’ve all been reduced to talking digital heads? No one was saving up for a new Prada coat.

Taymour, like many other fashion designers, saw a possible solution. We needed to wear masks to stop the virus from spreading—but why couldn’t we wear ones that were dementedly happy? She set about translating her line’s psychedelic exuberance into $100 face coverings. They featured whimsical patterns made from deadstock fabrics and tied with theatrical bows. “It helped me stay optimistic during a really dark time for fashion,” she recently said.

Her masks were also a lifeline.

Perhaps because Taymour injected a dollop of joy into her designs, or maybe because she works largely with recycled materials, and so had plenty on hand, her masks were a hit. They even created a halo effect: Google searches of her brand name skyrocketed 600%, she said. She continues to carry a variety of them on her site, including ones that say Black Lives Matter, plus a tutorial on how to make them at home. She’d like to get back to, you know, making clothes, but for now, the masks will stay.

She's not alone. In a period of existential turmoil for the fashion industry, masks have been an unexpected silver lining. It will surprise exactly no one to learn that, since March, a robust mask economy has blossomed. Investment bank KeyBanc Capital Markets estimates that the mask market in the United States could be worth a staggering $6 billion by 2021. But while the Marker story that contains that estimate suggests the “mask bubble” might “pop,” fashion businesses of every size indicate the opposite. Etsy is a particularly fascinating snapshot at how large this category has grown: The retail platform sold 29 million masks during Q2 (so, roughly April through June), and clocked close to $350 million in mask-related gross merchandise sales. More than 100,000 Etsy vendors made a mask sale during the quarter, and the term “face masks” was the number one searched phrase on-site—approximately 11 searches per second.

Perhaps the biggest sign of the mask’s staying power is that behemoths like Uniqlo, Gap, and Adidas are selling them. These are enormous companies with complex supply chains: creating a new product can take months or years, rather than the hour it took Taymour. But switch they did, and all of a sudden, clothing companies had a new low-margin accessory in a time when people are mostly abstaining from clothing purchases. (Adidas and Uniqlo both declined to speak about their mask strategies for this story.)

This much is clear: If ugly sneakers defined 2017, and itty-bitty sunglasses defined 2018, then 2020 belongs to the mask. And they're not just a trend. The mask has saturated the culture, becoming a symbol of our political inclinations as well as a vehicle of self-expression. It simultaneously hides and reveals, confines and frees.

Are masks a passing pandemic fad, or part of a new normal? They are born of necessity, though once a vaccine is found and widely distributed, that need will subside. But it's not clear that our desire for them—and brands' interest in turning a quick buck—will disappear.

“As this has been such an unprecedented situation, I think it will take a while for the public to recover and return to our normal habits,” said Claire Foster, head of footwear and accessories at the trend forecasting firm WGSN. Once a vaccine has been found, he says, it may take time before people—or at least, those people who understand that masks are essential to controlling the pandemic—feel comfortable going maskless, especially now that we’re all so very aware of how quickly airborne viruses spread.

Masks didn’t just magically appear in mid-March, either, when they went from novelty to necessity overnight. The forecasters at WGSN had been eyeing masks for a couple of years, as an “accessory of note,” and not just the stylish fringe showpiece worn by country singer Orville Peck or as a silly prop for a reality singing competition. WGSN clocked the potential longevity of masks for more depressing—and realistic—reasons: climate change and pollution. “We had seen a number of anti-pollution masks emerge from both the active and fashion markets, and mask designs from brands like Airinium and Airpop in the Asia region becoming really sophisticated in catering to the consumer looking for protection against air pollution,” Foster said. As a drastic fire season spread across California this summer, filling the blood-red skies with smoke and the aroma of charred earth, it was a reminder that masks may be part of the culture in a more lasting way than we had first thought.

And as Foster noted, the West is hardly trailblazing this trend. Asian countries long ago adopted mask-wearing in a more quotidian way: as an act of consideration when people are feeling ill, to protect themselves from pollution, and as a precautionary response after various outbreaks in recent years.

While most mass labels have opted for the most inoffensive design possible, some designers have found there’s a financial opportunity to be had when injecting personality into these highly-visible accessories. It’s certainly there in Taymour’s work, and the peppy stripes, plaids, and animal prints offered up from Baggu. Erdem has done florals and J. Crew has done gingham. Vince did one in a dusty rose silk while Mother Denim’s are made from, well, denim. Rowing Blazers made some in tweed herringbone, like a little sportcoat for your chin. The luxury brands got into the mix, too: as part of Louis Vuitton’s cruise 2021 collection, branded face shields were on display. They’ll set you back $961.

Major sports leagues were quick to adapt, capitalizing on a fan’s enthusiasm for gear. According to Fanatics, the largest provider of licensed sports merchandise, millions of face coverings have been sold to date, and masks have “easily become our fastest-growing category across the entire business,” said Brandon Williams, the company’s director of global communications. In early March, he said, Fanatics halted the production of MLB jerseys at their factory in Easton, Pennsylvania and started to create face coverings to donate to frontline workers. Fans, of course, wanted in. Williams says they are expecting to continue on with the category and are focused on new styles. (Dodger world champion masks were available immediately after their historic win last month.)

Whether this is a pivot or more of a hiccup remains to be seen. Amy Rogoff Dunn, a partner at the consulting agency Kelton, has her doubts. Her company’s research finds that most people think of masks as uncomfortable and a hindrance in daily life, another thing to think about before heading out. (Or, perhaps, to protest.) “If we look at examples of accessories that went from purely functional to fashionable, they tend to start out as something people actually like and they’re things that offer an enduring benefit,” she said, naming phones and water bottles as examples: first you needed to make calls and to drink water, and then you needed to carry an iPhone and a S’well. “So I think for masks to stick around post-pandemic, they will have to have some really compelling, enduring benefit.”

Dunn says that air quality and flu season are the two big reasons people might wear masks moving forward, and that she could see them remaining in use in dense cities like New York or in California, where air quality is an issue. “While the pandemic has been a huge shock to the system and a crisis big enough to get most of us to act with a collectivist mindset for months now, I’m not convinced that we’re generally shifting to a collectivist society,” she said. “And I don’t think the perceived milder threat of colds and flus is nearly enough to get mainstream Americans to act in a collectivist way by putting the welfare of others above their comfort.”

Still, for a younger generation masks may have reached their fashion inflection point. “I keep seeing videos re-posted from TikTok of street style in all these different countries, in Asia, with people wearing masks,” says Aaron Royce, a 22-year-old journalism student at Virginia Commonwealth University. “I think, aesthetically, people are still wearing masks. I also think in general, there’s a benefit. It gives you mystery.”

Royce says he will continue to wear a mask post-vaccine until he, himself, has received one, and maybe even after that. “Even after a vaccine. We don’t know for certain how effective the vaccine will be,” he said.

Until then, the mask will remain a part of just about every fashion designer’s arsenal—a hedge against continued disaster, especially if government assistance remains tough to come by. “We have no idea how many times this is mutating or if there will be an outbreak of something else,” says Taymour. “I’m not scared to keep creating masks. Worst case scenario is that we have a cute mask that we sell 30 of and not 300. That doesn’t affect me at all. To keep creating them and making them cute and fun for people to wear is the top priority. I want people to feel cool and cute and not embarrassed."

Originally Appeared on GQ