Artists make light of now-mandatory accessory, the face mask, in fashion week with a difference
- The first in the world and hopefully also the last, designer Julia Janus said as she cut a ribbon to launch Mask Fashion Week in Vilnius, northern Europe
- Artists were invited to accessorise face masks, and some went for laughs while others sought to impress. Pointy black beaks echoed imagery of the Black Death
.png?itok=arIb17P0)
Artists in Lithuania invited residents of the country’s capital, Vilnius, to a “Mask Fashion Week”, encouraging them to have fun wearing the now-mandatory facial accessory.
Spearheading the initiative, designer Julia Janus said she hoped it would “encourage creativity” as well as compliance with orders to wear masks in public to help stem coronavirus infections.
“This is the first Mask Fashion Week in the world,” Janus said after a symbolic ribbon-cutting ceremony to launch the event.
“I hope that it will also be the last, but who knows.”
More than 20 billboards dotted around the city feature posters of artists wearing their own uniquely styled masks. Each is captioned: “Creativity Cannot be Masked.”
Painted with pursed red lips or toothy grins, some masks are intended to draw laughs, while others aim to impress with elegant embroidery, pearls and lace or tailored finishes that match a business suit.
How to keep a cloth face mask clean amid coronavirus
Others, featuring pointy black beaks, are modelled on masks worn by doctors during the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the mid-1300s.
The Baltic country has begun a gradual easing of lockdown restrictions, reopening open-air cafes and restaurants along with shops and libraries as infections slow.
Vilnius mayor Remigijus Simasius has offered cafes free use of public spaces, saying he wants the capital to become “one giant outdoor cafe”.
Although cinemas remain closed, hundreds of movie fans are flocking to Lithuania’s main international airport to a drive-in cinema created in the shadow of planes grounded by the coronavirus pandemic.
