BY: CLAIRE KIM
When the coronavirus pandemic began to take shape back in mid-March, several businesses believed that the restriction from on-campus activities would be uplifted sooner than later. In fact, both my mother and my father, who work as tech company employees, assumed that in a couple of weeks they would receive a letter of notice telling them to return to their respective buildings, continuing their work as if nothing major happened.
Clearly, this was not the case.
Five months in, we are still dealing with the pandemic, stuck in our houses, villas, or apartments all day long, significantly changing the way we approach our work as well. Labs for in-person testing, blueprint technologies, 3-D printers, or just printers in general, the materials needed to successfully carry out certain aspects of work are severely limited due to the restricted access of company buildings and their available resources during this pandemic.
So, What should we do? Or maybe the question is, What can we do?
Well, it’s time to be creative, open to different approaches when examining our work.
Hanifa, an African-spirited clothing brand, is a great example of how creativity can leverage success in a virtual workspace. With in-person modeling restricted as a result of social distancing protocols, Hanifa has taken the initiative to host a virtual fashion show this past spring with a digitally rendered model called Imani, a 3-D avatar comparable to real-life models like Gigi Hadid. You can see a snippet of this runway action on their homepage, https://hanifa.co/, or through this short video featured on their Instagram linked here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAs7WqrgbRa/
What makes Imani so avant-garde is her ability to portray the motions of her worn clothing as if they were real, swaying left and right as she struts on the runway.
While physical resources may be limited, creativity is not limited… and Hanifa has proven this through their “ghost-like”, yet chic model, Imani.
claire kim. 