Items

• 2020-05-18

  Face Masks as Fashion

  One of the most interesting things to watch during this pandemic for me is the rise of designer face masks. Ever since the CDC advised personal protective gear (PPE) to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, people have begun making DIY face masks or purchasing them from retailers ranging from small to large. There have been luxury face masks around before the COVID-19 pandemic—the most notable example in my mind is the all-Gucci outfit singer Billie Eilish wore to the 2020 Grammys that included a mask covered in the Gucci logo, which I think was simply for fashion despite the Grammys occurring in late January, around when people in the United States began to be on alert for the novel coronavirus. I had seen some designer face masks worn in photos compilations of “Instagram rich kids,” who are usually children of business moguls, celebrities, or royals, but had never seen them reach enough popularity to be worn by people in my social stratosphere (white & upper-middle class/upper-class) until now. What has been most fascinating to me are designer face masks produced by individuals, not by these large fashion labels. During this pandemic, most major luxury brands are not selling face masks. Instead, most “designer” face masks being sold are made by individuals profiting off the prestige or popularity of a brand. For example, on Etsy, where searching “designer face mask” yields 14,000 items for sale, people are selling “designer-inspired” or “stylish design” face masks covered in logos by companies such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, or Chanel. Another example is face masks created using actual designer fabric, which seem to be much less common than the designer rip-offs. One of my neighbors who owns and runs a high-end boutique created a small batch of face masks using vintage designer fabric from similar brands like Hermes and Louis Vuitton. When my mother and I ran into her on a walk, as she showed us the masks, she half-joked to us that we needed a “going-out” mask, a simple mask for going providing protection that you don’t mind getting messed up, and a “social” mask, a “fancy” mask like hers meant to be seen by others. I have not seen any “social” masks or designer masks myself being used out in the world (granted, I try not to leave the house as much as possible), but the popularity of designer masks can be clearly seen online. The fact that most of these “designer” masks are projects made by small creators is incredibly fascinating to me. The social capital that comes with owning something with designer logos is so strong that it is persisting during a time that people are going out of their way to create designer-rip offs for products that are not even on sale right now. I initially thought that because the pandemic we are living through is such a “time of exception” that people would be so concerned with just surviving that any social capital that comes with owning luxury clothing would be eschewed, but instead people are finding new ways to flex their wealth. Because most of these designer-logo masks sold by individuals are affordable for almost everyone, it will be interesting to see as time goes on how the amount of social capital that comes with owning one of these masks changes.
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  2020-04-06

  A Letter to My Future Self

  Dear future self, Welcome back to the wonderful world of the COVID-19 outbreak. It’s been a year, so you will be in 2021, 17 years old and about a month from graduating high school. Current status: I don’t even know, the US is doing the worst in the world (for COVID-19 cases and other assorted issues haha) and last time I checked 34 of the states have stay-at-home orders. It’s April 6th, 2020, and we have been self-quarantining for about 3 weeks now, but the actual stay-at-home order from Ducey is fairly recent. All I’ve been doing is go to work a few times a week, babysit twice a week, and do online school. I’m excited to be a senior next year, especially because I’ll have a half day. When the outbreak first happened in China, I can’t say I cared or knew a lot about it. Come February it was getting worse, and we heard about schools closing, but looking back I was in a bubble, and I felt like it wasn’t going to really affect me. (“They won’t close schools, and it’s not like anyone I know will get it”). We joked about it constantly, but we’re Gen Z, we’re nihilistic about everything - walking through the school I heard banter about people trying to get COVID-19 just so they will cancel school. Around then was when I started to see real effects of Corona, movies not being released in theaters, talk shows filmed at home. So, I began reading the news and listening to a news podcast every morning in hopes of educating myself. As I started to grasp the situation, my bubble burst all at once. It was the day after I took my SAT (I was one of the few who did take it: most test centers had been closed due to the virus - once again I was not directly affected), and it was announced that school had really been cancelled, so my first week of quarantine began. Spring break was coming up, and I still had a lot of hope: that we’d be back in school, that this would be over soon, that we’d still go on vacation, that life would quickly return to normal. Everything accelerated so quickly about a week after that, and the situation became stressful. All of the sudden my daily routine of waking up, going to school, coming home, sometimes working, sometimes going to French Honors Society: it was all gone. I realized I wouldn’t see my friends in person for months, and that I would have to try to keep my grades up from home. The only thing that really brought normality was my favorite show (Good Mythical Morning) that brought new episodes (now from their homes) daily, so that’s what I woke up for each morning. The next week I continued work, which I had taken a week’s break from to assess the situation, and started babysitting for two kids whose parents needed someone to look after them now that we are all at home. Having something to do brought a schedule to my life, and shortly after that school started up again online. I hope that by the fall the outbreak has calmed. I have been listening to the news podcast for a couple weeks, and scientists such as Dr.Fauci say the virus might be seasonal, meaning it would never really go away. However, the swine flu was really bad like 10 years ago, and now it is just one of the strands of flu we get shots for. In my free time I’ve been playing a lot of Switch, FaceTiming with my little cousins, and hanging out in the backyard. It’s really interesting to hear about the situation from the perspectives of younger kids because they see things much more simply than we do. It seems like they just miss going to school, and are waiting for this to be over already: I’d guess it’s hard for them to grasp the severity of the situation, especially since it seems like a lot of adults are failing to do so. I think the main thing I will remember from this time is the confusion and some of the hopelessness I feel, staying at home to protect myself and others but wanting nothing more than to go back to normal life (as I suspect everyone who goes through an upheaval in their life feels). Anyway, I hope you’re doing well, future me! P.S. Do you still listen to the same music and podcasts I do now? Right now I’m loving The 1975, Nirvana, Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Mayer (as I have literally my whole life - no way that’s changed), and the Mythical Feel Good Quarantine Playlist that Rhett and Link made. As far as podcasts, I listen a lot to Ear Biscuits, Philip DeFranco, and NVC, and some Dolly Parton’s America.