Zac Sheaffer Discusses the Impact of COVID-19 on the Clothing Industry

Covid-19 put the whole world in a boxing ring with a strange and dangerous virus. We took the punches, lost more than a tooth, got our skin cut open in several places, but we are still standing, shaken but not stirred from our ability to re-form our lives. Hopeful as we are, it’s important to listen to stories of people and industries that took the worst hit. Zac Sheaffer, founder of Zamage clothing, discusses Covid’s impact on the clothing industry.
The clothing industry faced an immense shortage of raw materials during the pandemic. From lack of fabric to massive order cancellations, a major part of the clothing industry was living a nightmare. Zac says, “There was a general sense of deficit. And with the social distancing norms in place, retail stores had little to no reason to stay open and were anyway closed down once the virus started to pose a serious threat. However, retail outlets like ours who had migrated to the online space could still keep up with work.”
While the digital space provided a breather for most businesses, it had its challenges too. But there’s no doubt that it fared better than its offline avatars. “The overall impact of Covid, I believe, will be seen in the upward swing towards the online space. People have seen, with their own eyes, the power of the digital space and its ability to transcend threats like the pandemic. I am sure that many fashion houses, small or big, will take their wares online and eventually focus on improving the site experience for their customers, like browsing and payment gateways.”
Covid has shown us how an unprecedented occurrence can reveal to us scars that we’d been hiding and the strengths we didn’t think ourselves capable of possessing as a species.