What’s next for fashion?
Paul Costelloe on why everything will change in clothing retail
PAUL Costelloe is a man of contradictions. His plummy British accent hides a sharp Dublin northside wit; he remains at the top of his game in fashion, yet has known financial ruin. He also manages to be straighttalking and sometimes offensive without falling victim to cancel culture. So who better to give a realistic take on the future of the retail industry as it prepares to reopen from lockdown?
“Impossible,” he retorts, when asked if Ireland’s high-street stores can practise social distancing. “How is this going to be controlled? We’ll start with good intentions, but will slip back into old habits. Human nature will take over.”
After weeks of hearing that Covid-19 can live on surfaces, the idea that fashion lovers can contain themselves when let loose among new-season stock is preposterous, according to the designer. “Particularly when clothing is such a ‘touchy-feely’ business,” he adds. “People love feeling fabrics before buying them.”
Surely then, shoppers will at least keep a distance from one another? But he takes this bank holiday weekend as further evidence of wishful thinking.
“Look at the beaches, they are packed. Humans are followers only to an extent, but that approach will wear thin rather quickly.”
As a member of the British Fashion Council, he also has a well-informed view on how the world of fashion will change forever (it’s exciting rather than grim, he reckons).
First, what does he think about the other big fashion story grabbing headlines last week? A row erupted between Kate Middleton and her sisterin-law Meghan Markle. According to a profile in society magazine Tatler, an incident took place between the two duchesses in the run-up to Meghan’s wedding which left Kate in tears. “Sources” linked it to Meghan’s insistence that her bridesmaids — including Kate — would not wear tights on the day.
Our own fashion royal baulks at the indiscretion of the piece. “Oh that’s dreadful! Such unnecessary information!” he says, before diving right into the debate.
“Kate was right and Meghan was wrong. There is not a shadow of a doubt that [directive] came from the queen and poor Kate was the messenger,” he says, with the air of a man in the know.
And why wouldn’t he? After all, he has dressed members of the British royal family and their close circles. “Protocol, at that level, is very important,” he says.
Why? “It’s about good taste. It’s as simple as that. I remember commuting to London many years ago and there would be girls with bare legs and it was like ‘My God! She’s got bare legs, she’s putting herself up for it’, if you know what I mean? So it goes back that far. It was considered a little risque. Now, of course, that’s not the case any more but the royal family are still very much about old protocol. And you either join the club or get out.”
Costelloe believes it is naive to think the argument was simply about tights.
“It’s about entirely different values. Kate’s background is completely different. Kate came from a very conservative, hardworking English middleclass background and Meghan came from... one still doesn’t know what type of background, but she had a tough time growing up.
“I don’t think it’s even snobbery,” he says, pointing to the royal family’s most down-to-earth member as proof — “When I was dressing Princess Diana she would always wear simple sheer tights.”
The favoured designer to one of the best-dressed women in fashion history once lived on the breadline. While struggling handto-mouth as a designer in Paris, he spent a night in a police cell after being arrested for illegally busking for his supper. He also sold paintings on the streets in Milan to make ends meet. These days he is known to give dinners with wellheeled clients a miss in favour of taking to the city streets to paint again, this time as a form of relaxation.
He lasted only a month in New York before being fired from a job by a fashion house who “didn’t like my style”. Undeterred, he returned to Britain to eventually seal his place among the greats. Now, aged 74, he says the retail industry is preparing for the biggest shake-up of our lifetime.
He shows the Sunday Independent a document from the British Fashion Council which would excite any shopaholic.
Here’s what we can look forward to: online shopping will become more like realworld shopping, and viceversa. We will increasingly view clothes online with 3D catwalk videos, vivid images of how fabrics will look, move and feel and then pick and collect our purchases in-store. It will save time, queueing and hassle. When we get clothes delivered to our homes, greater emphasis will also be placed on the “unboxing experience”.
Stores will surprise and delight customers with imaginative new ways of opening their clothes to ensure customers don’t forget exactly where they are shopping as they unpack boxes at home. Expect customers to increasingly share their “unboxing experiences” on social media — and retailers using it to their advantage (research shows 45pc of people feel excited when watching others open their new possessions).
Costelloe also predicts clothes shopping will become more like shopping for a mobile phone. When you go in-store to buy an item, he says, “it will be boxed. You can look at your dress or piece of knitwear but you won’t walk out with that exact item. You will get the same item boxed, so it won’t have been touched by anybody. It will be the same experience you have when you buy your mobile phone in a technology shop”.
As for fashion trends, with more time spent at home, he says: “We will shop the French way; buy less but buy better.”
He also believes our new work-from-home lifestyle will show in our style. With sales of loungewear up
70pc, the trend will become more glamorous: “People will want loungewear that they can wear as daywear. They will want their clothes to become softer, fluid and feel good. Think Americana, the east coast, summertime in the Hamptons, the Kennedys.”
Image will become even more important in work as people have less face time to impress peers.
Home backdrops will become an extension of a wardrobe and he advises investing €200 in a painting from a struggling artist, in the same way you would an outfit, to tell colleagues a little something about your personality.
As for the best part, he says: “Expect the mother of all sales to entice customers back in stores. Prices will be up to 50pc less.”
As if we needed any more incentive.