Best Pandemic Fashion 2021

By 2021 you were all well versed in the concept of wearing protective face masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. If you need a recap on what is going on, the best pandemic clothing 2020 guide covers the pandemic and PPE in full. This page is the sequel: the year the mask story began, unevenly, to wind down.

In 2021 the casual clothing boom continued, but face mask wearing began to taper off. The government reduced the face mask requirement rules as the world began to remind us of normalcy, and the relaxed rules were an ongoing process throughout the year. At the same time, pandemic casual clothing became a staple for many people - the two halves of this guide.

Masks in 2021: Taper, Not an Ending

The mask mandates in the United States were not nationally consistent and were regionally determined. The process was rather confusing, but most people worked hard to comply with local rules and regulations wherever they were. A shopper could need a mask in one town and not in the next, which is why the mask by the door remained standard equipment through 2021 even as the rules loosened around it.

The eased restrictions and the roll out of vaccines allowed more people to venture out in public without wearing face masks. That sentence would have been unthinkable in 2020. The protective vocabulary of that year still frames this one: PPE is personal protective equipment, and the PPE clothing term page defines the category, while the face masks retail page gathers where masks were sold.

The Protective Basics, for the Record

For readers catching up, two linked answers carry the protective detail from the height of the pandemic. One explains surgical masks versus N95 respirator masks, and the other covers the best protective face mask fabrics. For making masks at home, the face mask patterns and the guide to sewing cloth face masks are the practical companions, and the men's surgical masks guide covers the category as clothing.

Hopefully we can take off our masks and gloves and put PPE concerns behind us - that was the hope written into this guide during 2021 itself, and it is worth keeping in the record exactly because it was a hope, not yet a fact. For trade readers, wholesale medical clothing remains the supply-side counterpart to the whole PPE story.

Pandemic Casual: The Staple That Stayed

Relaxing at home was forced upon the nation in 2020; in 2021 people kept the clothes anyway. Pandemic casual clothing became a staple for many people, which is a different claim from a boom: a staple is what a wardrobe is built around. Soft separates, comfortable casual garments and clothes made for both a couch and a video call stopped being emergency purchases and became the default layer other clothes had to justify themselves against.

The site's comfort categories map that default. The loungewear product guide and the women's loungewear guide cover the soft separates people lived in, and the women's yoga clothing guide and the yoga pants product guide cover the garment at the center of the casual boom. Will business attire be back in vogue next year, or is relaxed casual here to stay? The guide asked the question in 2021; the staple language suggests it already suspected the answer.

A Historical Record, Not Current Guidance

This page is kept as a historical record of how clothing answered 2021. The mandates, vaccine rollout and shopping patterns it describes belong to that year: rules have since changed everywhere, and health guidance has moved on. Anyone making protective decisions today should follow current guidance from current sources, and use the links here to understand the categories and terms rather than as present-day instructions. Did the COVID-19 pandemic cause the fashion industry to get sick? In 2021 the industry was, at least, clearly convalescing - dressing for home and for going out at the same time.

What will post-pandemic fashion look like was the year's open question, and this section's other guides are part of its answer: boots with crystals, a beaded cocktail bag and twelve stores are not the shopping list of a nation staying home. Thank you for using the Apparel Search website.

Photos