The fashion industry has a long history of crises: wars, occupation, disasters, a pandemic. Each time, survival depended not on luck but on decisions that protected two things – the business ecosystem and its people.

In my view, 1940 is a particularly telling moment in this history. Paris, the world’s fashion capital, was under occupation, and the very existence of haute couture was at stake.

1940: An ecosystem cannot be relocated

The Nazi leadership decided to move haute couture to Berlin. Lucien Lelong, President of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, was summoned to discuss the move. His key argument was a business one: couture does not exist on its own. It depends on a network of related crafts – embroidery and millinery workshops, makers of gloves, shoes and buttons, dye houses and textile mills. To uproot this ecosystem from Paris would be to destroy it. The industry stayed, though at a high price: exports were halted and the use of materials was cut by half. Historians still debate how to judge those years, but a unique industry and thousands of jobs survived.

1945: Recovery is possible when people are preserved

Immediately after the liberation, the Paris couture industry, led by Lelong’s Chambre Syndicale, launched the Théâtre de la Mode: nearly two hundred mannequins dressed by more than fifty couture houses. The exhibition toured Europe and the United States, gave work to hundreds of artisans and paved the way for Dior’s New Look in 1947. Recovery was possible because people and their skills had not been lost.

2013: Responsibility for the whole chain

Globalisation stretched the fashion ecosystem across the world. In 2013, the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh killed more than 1,100 garment workers. More than 200 brands signed a legally binding agreement on factory safety. But the deeper consequence was that the disaster changed the law. In 2017, France became the first country to require large companies to manage risks across their entire supply chain, and from 26 July 2029 similar EU requirements will apply to very large companies that meet the applicable thresholds. The lesson became a norm: the business ecosystem includes the people who work far from the shop window.

2020: People are an asset, not a cost

When the pandemic closed stores around the world, Hermès maintained the basic salaries of all 15,500 employees without state aid, and Chanel paid full salaries to its 7,500 employees in France for eight weeks. LVMH converted the perfume factories of Dior and Givenchy to produce hand sanitiser for Paris hospitals. The leading fashion houses showed that in a crisis, a strong business protects its team and stays useful to society.

2022: A lesson unfolding right now

Everything fashion had learned over decades, Ukrainian businesses had to apply within weeks. After the pandemic, to our deep regret, Ukraine faced Russia’s full-scale armed aggression, and with it challenges familiar from history: to maintain ties with international brands when logistics are collapsing, to preserve the connection with clients and brand enthusiasts when values are shifting, and to keep the team together when people are working under constant threat.

This experience matters to Europe not as a war story, but as a practical laboratory of resilience. European businesses already face energy risks, cyberattacks and supply disruptions. Ukraine shows three things:

Readiness for different scenarios. War cannot be predicted, but it has shown that businesses must think through several scenarios in advance and be able to make decisions in hours, not weeks.

Partnerships rest on trust and flexibility. International brands stay with a market that is open about risks and keeps its commitments.

Teams hold together through trust. And trust is built on transparency, honest communication and consistent leadership decisions. People’s safety and back-up for key roles matter more than any procedure.

Resilience as legal design

The main lesson of a century of crises, and of our own reality: resilience in fashion is not only a response to crisis, but a legal design built in advance. Each of its pillars has been tested by history:

Ecosystem and contracts, as with Lelong: risk allocation between brand, retailer and supplier, agreed in advance;

People, as with Hermès and Chanel: safety, retention of key talent and processes prepared for disruption;

Responsibility, as after Rana Plaza: compliance as a map of risks and a way to preserve trust.

That is the role of the lawyer today: in fashion, the lawyer must be an architect of resilience, not a firefighter.

I will be discussing these ideas at METRICS Summit 2027 in Paris, 7–8 July.

Sources

Paris couture under occupation, 1940: SHOWstudio, Haute Couture Under Occupation

Lucien Lelong and the Théâtre de la Mode: Anne Sebba, Post-war France and the Théâtre de la Mode

Théâtre de la Mode: Victoria and Albert Museum, collections

Rana Plaza and the Bangladesh Accord: Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh

French duty of vigilance law (2017): L’Info Durable

EU corporate sustainability due diligence: European Commission

EU due diligence application dates (Omnibus I, 2026): Covington

Hermès, 2020: The Fashion Law

Chanel, 2020: FashionNetwork

LVMH, 2020: CNBC