Last modified on Wed 16 Dec 2020 05.02 EST
It is Monday morning and time for her weekly video meeting, so Alice, a 35-year-old author and writer based in Paris, does what she always does before logging on: “I switch my pyjama top for a black turtleneck and slap on mascara to pretend I’ve been doing more than lying in bed watching Emily in Paris.”
Like most people whose jobs have moved almost exclusively online this year, Alice’s standards have not so much slipped as tumbled headlong into an abyss since France entered
le confinement in March.
“At the start, I paid attention to details – earrings, makeup – to recreate what I looked like in real, outdoor life,” she says. “Today, I’ve slipped into an in-between zone of neither bedwear nor officewear.” Her current getup calls to mind a “giant teletubby”, she says, listing her uniform of big jumpers, velour sportswear and the bare minimum of makeup. “I’m a tracksuit lady … but I am so sick of comfortwea