DERRY JOURNAL Editorial: Bidding a fond farewell to the ‘lockdown look’

Dedicated followers of fashion may look away now.

Well, it seems like the weeks of wild hair and the chance to lay about in your Rab C Nesbitt string vest or elasticated sweatpants may be coming to an end for a lot of us over the coming weeks.

As businesses kick back in, the leisure wear that has become the outfit of choice over the past weeks (or months, years, who knows - what day is it?) will have to be switched out as style and convention takes over once more and we bid a fond farewell to the pyjamas and house coats.

With the hairdressers and barbers shut, there have been a variety of interesting new styles and looks emerging over recent months as people got ‘the lockdown look’, whether they wanted it or not. For the self-shearing follically challenged among us, it was a rare moment to shine.

The lockdown has not been without its humour. The amount of memes and pictures circulated locally, the Tik Tok videos, the little stories and the moments of shared mirth have shown that people have not lost their lighter touch. It has been a welcome relief and a good antidote to all the horror and bad news we have been exposed to.

And we have seen many, many people who wouldn’t have know their apps from their hashtags pre-lockdown becoming adept at Zoom, Skype, Facebook Live, Whatsapp and Instagram etc. It has been a crash course in technology for a lot of us, but one which will hopefully bring long term benefits to those who never used such resources before to stay in touch with loved ones near and far.

For those that could get out and about, we’ve also had the time recently when out walking, visiting or delivering groceries to really chat with people, albeit at a distance. Usually we’re all hurrying and scurrying from one appointment and task to another. As life slowed, it gave us a chance to reconnect, to stand and natter and catch up with people we might have seen regularly for years on end but never really had the time or took the time to properly find out what was going on with them, or them with us. That connection has helped us through a dark period none of us are ever likely to forget. For a lot of people it has been a lifeline.

It has been put more eloquently by others but it would be lovely if, as we squeeze into our good clothes and our work uniforms and hit the barbers, hairdressers and treadmill again, we can take those positives with us into the post-COVID world we are now emerging into.