This year, the notion of protective clothing took on entirely new meanings, from bacteria-busting materials to jewellery that aids social distancing. With facemasks becoming mandatory in many countries across the world – and more than 90% of people in Spain and Italy always wearing facemasks out of the home – the need for hygiene-first garments really came to the fore. In our Inter-Covid Fashion microtrend, we explore some of the health-focused innovations playing out in the sector.

Among them is Vollebak. This innovative fashion company is betting on copper as a material for future use protective clothing and environments. 'Copper has exceptional anti-microbial properties, which means bacteria and viruses die when they make contact with it,' explains Steve Tidball, Vollebak co-founder.

As we approach 2021, brands and consumers will continue to seek intelligent textiles that prioritise the health and safety of wearers. And while social distancing may not outlast the pandemic, anti-bacterial threads and health status-signalling garments could come into their own as consumers become more aware of their overall wellbeing.

Opting to retain a bricks-and-mortar campaign element, this year’s annual Homecoming festival of Nigerian creativity took a phygital approach through its collaboration with London-based retailer Browns.

Retaining the festival’s goal of showcasing emerging African talent across the creative sector, this year’s iteration saw a multi-disciplinary celebration of music, fashion, art and culture. Combining an e-zine with an array of digital events and in-store activations, the content provided education and awareness while boosting the presence of an exclusive fashion collection sold at the retailer's Browns East outpost. The zine, titled Ni Agbaye, which means ‘in the world’, spotlights the global influence of Afro culture and explores cultural exchange through a range of mediums and voices from the diaspora.

Discussing the Browns East collaboration, Grace Ladoja, founder of Homecoming, says: ‘We're stocking 15 designers; most are from Nigeria and for some, it’s their first stockist. It was really important for us to get their products in-store so that we could spotlight them globally to a new audience.’

In 2020, fast fashion continued to hold a negative ethical and environmental reputation, in particular with a newly-responsible cohort of shoppers emerging as a result of Covid-19. In response, companies such as H&M are innovating to make sustainability part of the fashion retail journey. In October it unveiled a new garment-to-garment recycling system, Looop, at its Stockholm flagship, encouraging customers to transform unwanted clothing into new items.

The concept involves a shipping container-sized machine that cleans customers' old garments, shredding them into fibres and spinning them into yarn, before knitting them into new pieces of clothing. Also acting as an experiment to challenge traditional retail, Looop's theatrical, service-led space invites consumers to actively engage and immerse themselves in circular fashion.

‘We are constantly exploring new technology and innovations to help transform the fashion industry as we are working to reduce the dependency on virgin resources,’ says Pascal Brun, head of sustainability at H&M. While aimed at consumers, this sustainable alternative to garment waste also reflects some of the deadstock design strategies emerging to utilise 2020’s unsold apparel.

Now that you know what shaped 2020, discover what’s on the horizon. Download our Future Forecast 2021 report comprising 50 new behavioural patterns across 10 key consumer sectors, expert opinion pieces and interviews with global innovators.