As we all continue to resume activities we gave up last year, from dressing up for formal events to changing out of pajamas for work, we're not necessarily going back to the way we dressed in "the before times."
"Before the pandemic, people literally dressed totally different than they do now," says Anita Headrick, owner of Chattanooga boutiques Alice Blue, Hanover Blue and Electric Blue.
"During COVID, people wanted pajamas, they wanted loungewear, they wanted stretchy stuff," Headrick says. "You're at home and you're eating and you're watching Netflix. You don't want anything that has to be sent to the dry cleaner, or that you'd have to zip on or off."
With life returning to a sense of normalcy, she says people have gone completely the opposite direction in terms of what they want to wear.
"They want bling and they want fabulous and they want glitzy," Headrick says.
People want flirty dresses and evening gowns for all the girls' trips, bachelorette parties and events put off until this year. No one's buying loungewear right now, but they are finding new ways to wear the sweats they stocked up on in the past year and a half.
For fall, clothing lines are styling their high-end sweats with stilettos, leather shirts and sequined blazers.
People are getting out of their sneakers and into dressier shoes, and they are staying away from jeans for the most part.
As for work attire, Headrick says women are wanting full suits and dressy, button-up blouses. Basically, they're ready to wear more structured clothing, or "hard" clothes, after a year of shapeless, stretchy "soft" clothing.
"There are people who are back at work who are excited to be dressing up again," says Ani Yacoubian Riggs, buyer for Yacoubian Tailors. "They're just ready to put their stretchy clothes away for a little while."
Yet there are others who aren't ready to give up the comfortable attire they have grown accustomed to wearing, even as they head back to the office. Riggs says she recently had a customer who was singing the praises of the zipper-free dress pant, a workplace-appropriate alternative to the leggings and sweats that fully comprised most people's 2020 wardrobe rotation.
What men are wearing in 2021 goes from one extreme to the other, Headrick says. Those working from home are doing so in khaki shorts and a T-shirt, then swapping out the T-shirt for a golf shirt before heading to the club to play a round.
"So it's either that or they're going to Yacoubian to get a suit made for a wedding," Headrick says. "There's really no in-between."
Riggs confirmed that more men are coming in for suits to wear to upcoming weddings, but says she hasn't seen a resurgence in people buying suits to wear for work. Sport coats are selling well, however, as they are easy to throw on to instantly dress up khakis or jeans.
She also confirmed that golf shirts are a pandemic wardrobe staple.
"We have sold more polos this year than probably any year in our history," Riggs says of the store, which opened in 1969. "It's unreal."
As younger guys head back to college this fall, Headrick expects to sell lots of Southern Tide shirts, loafers and cowboy boots - items students typically buy to dress up for things like rush week, tailgating, bid day and parents' weekend that they missed out on last year.
People are buying long, sequined dresses for formal events like the Chattanooga Ball (formerly called the Cotton Ball) without even looking at the prices, Headrick says. "They're just so happy to be going somewhere and have their hair and their nails done," she says.