The retail industry is undergoing a profound shift in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. Stores are closed, millions of people are out of work, and shopping for clothing and accessories isn’t considered essential business. Legacy brands, designers, stylists, and other creative professionals are rapidly pivoting their business strategies in order to survive, and creating plans in order to move forward in the aftermath of the crisis.

For “Retailing and Service Design,” the final 5-week course in the MPS Fashion Management program in the School of Fashion at Parsons School of Design, professors Joshua Williams and Christopher Lacy had always planned to teach students about retail from an omnichannel perspective in order to help them find spaces to innovate after graduation. The current global health crisis has forced them to alter the curriculum, which now includes lecture videos, a weekly online seminar, and a podcast, “Retail Revolution,” where they interview experts about the impacts of Covid-19.

Retail Revolution podcast was borne out of a need to rethink the graduate-level “Retailing & Service Design” course for online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This course is part of the Fashion Management program at Parsons School of Design, and it was important to ensure that students were still able to engage with retail industry leaders and experts. From that starting point, it became an opportunity to engage the greater retail community in conversation about the short and long term implications of the pandemic, as well as the opportunity to rethink fashion retail for the future.