Ever imagined viewing catwalk shows from the comfort of your own home to take a sneak peek at the newest collections of Christian Dior or Valentino? It is not a dream anymore.

Paris Fashion Week on Monday, kicked off its first-ever fully digital season as the fashion industry is figuring out the best way to navigate the novel coronavirus pandemic through virtual runways and showrooms.

Paris haute couture and men's fashion weeks have been rolled into a one-week digital event, with world-class fashion houses, including Dior, Valentino, Chanel and Hermes, filming videos to showcase their creations instead of staging the usual catwalk extravaganza.

Through an organized schedule of digital presentations running from July 6 to 13, top designers are presenting this year's haute couture offerings via livestreams, as well as films and photographs streamed to online audiences.

One of the opening day's highlights, Dior launched a livestream to showcase a glittering cluster of its new designs.

These were not normal times, Dior's creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri – the first woman to lead the iconic label – told AFP.

Noting that creating the collection "was very complex," she said "From the start, it was clear that a real show would not happen. So we had to come up with something really dense and creative."

In the special makeover caused by the COVID-19 crisis, designers experiment with online showcases to keep clients hooked and keep audiences engaged before the physical displays are on the agenda.

Italian designer Maurizio Galante revealed that he has taken a cinematic inspiration for his show earlier on Monday, and described the digital event "a great chance for us to get to a wider public."

"And with a film, people are also likely to be more concentrated on the images rather than who is sitting in the front row," he added.

Before Paris Fashion Week, which was initially canceled, decided to launch an online edition, some of its counterparts have conducted digital experiments to moving the runway online.

One of the biggest events of China's fashion calendar, Shanghai Fashion Week, running from March 24 to 30, first took a bold step of moving a total of over 150 catwalk shows online in cooperation with China's e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba, making it world's first entirely livestreamed digital fashion week.

Its opening show garnered more than 2.5 million views within three hours, and upwards of six million tuned into the shows and interacted with the hosts on the first day.

The digital events help the labels reach their clients and consumers in the time of social distancing and support some textile suppliers and artisans and keep them going.

Other businesses, however, are still feeling the pain of the absence of a larger event keenly.

The federation grouping couture houses estimated that Paris's multiple fashion weeks generate some 1.2 billion euros (1.35 billion U.S. dollars) for the local economy every year, according to Reuters.

"The impact of a virtual fashion week on our business is serious because there are no more clients to drive around," said Guillaume Connan, whose limousine company usually ferries A-listers around between shows.

Frederic Hocquard, who oversees tourism and some cultural affairs at Paris's city council, said that physical catwalk shows are likely to resume in Paris by September and some brands are already booking venues.

Hocquard added that despite the economic hit, the hiatus this time could have some positive side effects, including as an inspiration for greener formats in the future, which would not generate as much congestion or waste.

As the fashion industry gradually stitches itself together on the back of the coronavirus crisis, insiders believe that the online iterations have offered new possibilities for the fashion weeks and houses in mapping their future plans.

(Cover image designed by Liu Shaozhen)

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