Lockdown status: Open.

Travel advice: Travel for work allowed with restrictions in place.

Working regulations: Generally all of the lifestyle industry are working from home.

Press status: It’s best to contact the press via email or phone.

Retail status: All physical retail stores are open with restrictions until further notice.

Lockdown status: Regional lockdown, mainly in the Capital Region and Bergen.

Travel advice: The government advises against travel within the country. Inbound travel is restricted: a travel form and negative test not older than 24 hours are required. Depending on the country of departure, quarantine can be required – in a quarantine hotel for travelers without a Norwegian address.

Working regulations: Generally all of the lifestyle industry are working from home.

Press status: It’s best to contact the press via email or phone.

Retail status: All physical retail stores are open with restrictions. Temporary closures are possible in areas with regional lockdowns.

Lockdown status: France is currently open however with strict restrictions and a curfew between 6 PM and 6 AM. Nice will be in lockdown during weekends. This type of lockdown could spread across the rest of the French territory.

Travel advice: International European borders remain open however travelers arriving in France from non-EU countries must present a negative COVID-19 test that is less than 72 hours old. Travelers can also take the test upon arrival.

Working regulations: Working from home is strongly recommended whenever possible. Most employees are currently either fully working from home or alternating between days at the office and days at home. 

Press status: Communication via email is preferred. However, keep in mind that response time might be rather long due to full mailboxes.

Retail status: Small retailers and essential stores are open but must be closed at 6 PM. Large shopping centers are closed. 

Lockdown status: Open. However, regional lockdowns could be imposed over the next month.

Travel advice: Travel for work allowed with restrictions in place.

Working regulations: Generally all of the lifestyle industry are working from home.

Press status: It’s best to contact the press via email.

Retail status: Currently open. However, this may change if regional lockdowns are imposed over the next month.

Lockdown status: Nationwide lockdown.

Travel advice: All travel banned for non-nationals & residents.

Working regulations: Generally all of the lifestyle industry are working from home

Press status: It’s best to contact the press via email.

Retail status: All physical retail stores are closed until further notice.

Lockdown status: Nationwide lockdown with curfew.

Travel advice: All inbound travel banned for non-EU nationals & residents, and for EU nationals & residents returning from Latin America, South Africa or the UK. Outbound travel banned with very few exceptions.

Working regulations: Generally all of the lifestyle industry are working from home.

Press status: It’s best to contact the press via email.

Retail status: Retail stores can receive 2 customers per floor on appointment.

Lockdown status: Nationwide partial lockdown.

Travel advice: A ban on outbound non-essential travel, inbound travel subject to negative test and quarantine.

Working regulations: Generally all of the lifestyle industry are working from home.

Press status: It’s best to contact the press via email.

Retail status: All physical retail stores are open.

Lockdown status: Nationwide lockdown in all 4 UK countries with easing plan spread over the next 3-4 months.

Travel advice: Travel for work allowed with restrictions in place, eg. quarantine hotels.

Working regulations: Generally all of the lifestyle industry are working from home.

Press status: It’s best to contact the press via email.

Retail status: All physical retail stores (high street & malls) are closed until April.

Lockdown status: Regional lockdowns.

Travel advice: All inbound travelers need to present a negative test or documentation of recovery. Quarantine requirements for domestic travelers vary from state to state. Borders to Mexico and Canada remain closed until March.

Working regulations: Generally some of the lifestyle industry are working from home whilst some are slowly returning to the office, alternating between the two.

Press status: It’s best to contact the press via email.

Retail status: Many retailers are opening again with varying local restrictions in place.

Winter sales home interior: During the last quarter of 2020 home and interior products bought online went up 73% according to the consumer report from 2020, created by the center of consumption behavior (source). In this report, we can also see that Swedes invest more in home interior products than in their personal wardrobe, since we have been spending all our time at home.

Winter sales fashion: Unfortunately, retail within fashion is one of the hardest affected industries due to the pandemic. In December 2020 there was a 13% increase of companies applying for bankruptcy (source).

Fashion Week: Stockholm Fashion Week AW21 will be fully digital and supported by VOCAST in sharing events, content, runway shows, and backstage content through the purpose-built digital platform we have developed.

Winter sales home interior: In general, the pandemic has not affected the interior and home goods industry too badly. Norwegians love home renovations and home projects, and many have spent quarantine doing this. The Bolia group has had a 20% growth during the pandemic. Several stores have offered online and click & collect alternatives to traditional shopping.

Winter sales fashion: Regulations have been stricter towards stores in malls. Fashion stores, especially slow fashion ones, have large quantities of winter clothing that they are struggling to sell. A large number of employees have been permitted, and some stores have limited opening hours.

Winter sales fashion: Winter sales which usually start on January 6th were pushed to January 20th and will end on March 2nd. The number of sales has been rather disappointing and declining despite the shift in dates. One of the reasons being the explosion of second-hand clothing sales which have slowed down consumer urges, including online. (Source)

Fashion Week: Paris Menswear Fashion Week and Haute Couture were fully digital and no physical runway shows were allowed to take place this time because of governmental restrictions. The next Women’s Fashion Week will be a hybrid.

Winter sales fashion: After closing budgets in 2020, the Italian fashion market noted a large impact of the pandemic resulting in a notable decrease in revenues by nearly 30%, almost 30 billion dollars (Bloomberg, 2021).

Fashion Week: Men’s Fashion Week FW21 was a hybrid of digital, Women’s Fashion Week FW21 will also be a hybrid of digital and physical. Men’s fashion week FW21 was presented in a hybrid format, with some shows streaming live without an audience. Notorious brands such as Giorgio Armani and Dolce & Gabbana however chose not to participate in this fashion week.

For some brands, this was an attempt to take a stand against hectic calendars, while some simply didn’t manage to present a show under the restricted conditions implied by the pandemic.

Winter sales home interior: “Even with tax in retail having gone down from 19% to 16% the home interior revenue will have fallen to an extreme in 2020, especially within the second half of the year with retail shutting completely.” (source)

Winter sales fashion: “Within Fashion for the whole year of 2020 in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria there has been a decline in revenue of around 19%, which is about 12 billion Euros.” (source)

Fashion Week: Berlin Fashion Week AW21 was fully digital.

Winter sales home interior: The online revenue for retailers was 38.3% higher in Q3 of 2020 than the previous year, a continuous growth after the record of Q2 which noted a 54.9% increase in online revenue. The home interior sector seemed to thrive despite the pandemic with some of the biggest revenue growth noted in Q3 of 2020 in furniture and interior stores at +17.2% (source).

Winter sales fashion: The Dutch spent a record € 695 mln in European online stores in Q2 of 2020, but in January 2021 retailers said the exclusively online winter sale would in the worst case push a quarter of the retailers to bankruptcy as online sales only make up around 20-25% of the revenue. The revenue of fashion stores dropped by 3.4% in Q3 of 2020 and shoes and leatherwear dropped by 4.9% compared to the previous year (source).

Fashion Week: Amsterdam Fashion Week AW21 is still to be announced – but despite restrictions, the fashion week took place physically in September 2020, stressing that the magic could not be replaced digitally.

Winter sales home interior: Regional lockdowns have been imposed in parts of the UK since the autumn, but in January full lockdowns were imposed nationwide.

The January sales this year have therefore been all online and major UK retailers, such as Liberty and John Lewis, held extensive sale reductions from Boxing Day to encourage shoppers to keep purchasing through the third lockdown.

Winter sales fashion: Fashion retail sales went up over the winter despite nationwide lockdown. “In December 2020, retail sales volumes increased by 0.3% when compared with November 2020, resulting in an increase of 2.7% when compared with February’s pre-lockdown level.” Moreover, “clothing stores reported strong monthly growth of 21.5%” (source).

Fashion Week: London Fashion Week AW21 will be fully digital and supported by VOCAST in sharing events, content, runway shows, and backstage content through the purpose-built digital platform we have developed.

Winter sales home interior: Since home buying and home remodeling remained strong during 2020, the home interior sector has seen growth in both site traffic and spend as most shopping has been online.

Winter sales fashion: Spending at retailers rebounded a bit during winter sales. In January, retail sales jumped 5.3%, well ahead of the 1.2% expectation according to CNBC. It might be due to falling cases and new stimulus reviving spending habits.

Fashion Week: New York Fashion Week FW21 in February was fully digital and collections were debuting via livestreams, look books and online presentations. Many headliner designers and brands who usually occupy the main stages chose not to show this season.

“Back in March 2020, when Denmark had its first lockdown, many of my clients rescheduled campaigns and some cancelled – I got a really huge campaign cancelled for the rest of the year. At that point I was a bit nervous and had thoughts about how I was going to make everything work if the lockdown remained. Luckily it all changed pretty fast – so I actually ended up having many campaigns for the rest of 2020. A positive view on the pandemic and the lockdowns that we have been through, is that it has been very nice to get a small break from all the things I am usually attending. Instead I have had the time to immerse in my work, create even better content and I have had a lot more time to be creative – which has brought me peace. With that said I do of course look forward to getting out to meetings, press days, events and fashion weeks again.” 

– Karoline Dall, Fashion Influencer.

“In a world where we have looked more at functionality than aesthetics, there is still room for beautiful things. We will consume less and much more vintage or second hand.

Replacement consumption exists, of course, but selected, beautiful, strange objects still fit in our rational homes.” 

– Stefan Nilsson trend expert. (source)

“With the lockdown here in Germany the Lifestyle and Communications industry is currently very tense. New, innovative, and disruptive formats within media need to be explored to get consumers and new audiences to pay attention. Now more than ever it is important for brands to think outside of the box within the industry.”

– Berlin-Benjamin Schiffer PR manager in assistance at BAM 

“The tighter lockdown measures in the Netherlands didn’t go down without a fight as riots broke out all across the country when a new curfew was imposed. Stores were looted and retailers – that have been shut throughout the lockdown – took preventive measures to protect what they could. Meanwhile, everyone is asked to continue working from home and not to travel – not even by public transport unless absolutely necessary.”

– Wided Bouchrika – Benelux Lifestyle Researcher

“We got creative with quarantine shoots and styling vlogs during the first wave. After that, we started doing shoots again, but we need to stay flexible: one day you can book a make-up artist, the next the model needs to do her own make-up, part of the team can’t make it to Belgium or has to sit through quarantine. So calling the corona-hotline has become a big part of the job – which stayed pretty much the same, though without the fashion weeks, trips, events, and in-person interviews. I spend most of my time at home and on video calls.”

– Catherine Kosters, Writer & Fashion Editor at Flair.