What has lockdown done to Britain’s £26bn fashion business? What will the post-pandemic High Street look like? Will we all wear posh pyjamas for the rest of our lives? And what on earth is “phygital” fashion – a mix of physical and digital shopping? Guardian fashion writer Lauren Cochrane, the author of The Ten: The Stories Behind The Fashion Classics, talks to Justin Quirk about how socio-political earthquakes shape what we wear – and why jeans, Breton shirts, stilettos and the colour black never seem to go out of fashion.

• “Fast fashion moves so fast now that we should call it sprint fashion.”
• “It’s astounding how much attention the Government will pay to the comparatively tiny fishing industry while ignoring the vastly bigger fashion business.”
• “Johnson and Trump are performatively badly dressed… Their populist base is as suspicious of fashion as they are.”
• “Economics play out in what we wear. Jeans were for poor people until the Depression – then Levi’s and Wranglers made them fashion items.”
• “The closest thing we’ve had to a political statement on fashion was Carrie Symonds renting her wedding dress.”

Presented by Justin Quirk. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production

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