Anna Wintour thinks the coronavirus pandemic will change the fashion industry forever.

Anna Wintour

Anna Wintour

The Vogue editor-in-chief will be hosting a "global conversation" next week with fashion industry bosses to discuss "the future of the runway show", after many events in the fashion calendar were cancelled as a result of coronavirus.

And Anna thinks the virus - which has forced many fashion brands to look into online solutions - will push the industry toward making real changes to the way runway shows operate, including making them more sustainable.

She said: "We are actually hosting a Vogue global conversations next week over a four-day period, where we are going to talk about the future of the runway show. We're going to talk about the future of e-commerce ... the future of creativity, and the future of retail ... because there's no way we're going back to the way things were.

"I think, you know, a lot of us were talking a lot about sustainability, and the fact that we were all flying so much. And the shows were so big and so expensive ... these issues, these really important issues are being thrust upon us in a much more significant and immediate way, and these are questions that everybody is asking."

Anna has teamed up with designer Tom Ford to create a fund called A Common Thread, which will give "micro loans" to small businesses and designers that are struggling to cope as the pandemic grips the US.

The editor believes the support system will help prevent new voices in fashion from giving up on their dream, and hopes she can help up and coming names "survive" until the virus subsides.

She added: "We're going to be giving out what we call micro loans, like $5-, $10-, $15-, $20-, up to $100,000 just to try and help the ones that we feel need it the most ... so that they can get through these next few months and be able to survive."

And Anna knows firsthand what battling the virus is like, as her son is a doctor working in a coronavirus ward, who caught the illness himself.

Speaking to Gayle King on 'CBS This Morning', she said: "I am so, so proud of my son. He's a doctor. And he is right back in the emergency room with the COVID wards right now.

"He was pretty sick. I'm sure you've heard from many others that so many doctors and so many nurses, you know, got sick ... but he was, once he was able, determined to go right back in and help, and do everything he can."


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