Hindsight is a beautiful thing. Just a few months ago, things were playing on your mind that right now, seem trivial – whether it was office politics, or booking your next holiday – nowadays, the little things seem to pale in comparison with what's facing us all every day.

Modern life is hectic, frantic – at times, purely bonkers; and it’s fair to say we’ll never have a time like this again where life is put on hold, the world stops turning and we can all sit back collectively, and take stock of what’s going on outside our front doors.

Looking back, even over the past decade, the world has changed at a rate that the human race has never seen before. We destroy our planet through excess, we communicate through screens, and we spend so much time with rectangular devices in our hands that we’ve forgotten the joys of getting to know someone face to face.

So, with life seemingly surging at an unstoppable pace, how do we react to the Covid-19 roadblock that’s stopped us in our tracks? Do we take this time to reflect and look how to better ourselves, our habits and our way of life? Or do we put things on pause, in the hope that after all this has passed, we can simply just continue the way we were. 

In our humble opinion, the latter just isn’t an option. We’ve all seen the figures on how pollution levels have dropped in some of the world’s most effected cities.  Delhi and Bangkok finally have clean breathing air. The canals in Venice are running blue. Less cars are clogging our roads – less flights have left our skies crystal clear and free of vapour trails – and whilst we all yearn for that sense of being able to go anywhere and do anything, the simple fact remains that these are good things for the planet we all share.

These observations run deeper than the simple fact of us emitting less pollution into our atmosphere; they make us address the other elements in our day to day habits that have developed at the same pace of modern life.

The way we use products, the throw away culture behind fast fashion, the way we consume the resources of the one planet we have - to the point that the jeans we wear are making rivers in China run blue with indigo dye - all these factors make the changes we are seeing now from the isolation of our homes feel like a drop in the ocean when compared to where we need to be.

We have always championed the person that values quality and plans ahead. The “quality over quantity” mentality is at the core of everything Duke + Dexter have done since day one. We’ve gone to great lengths to make our supply chain as ethical and sustainable as possible – so that your wardrobe can be made up of fewer, better things. Things to cherish, to care for, to wear and enjoy, safe in the knowledge that they’ll always be there for you.

We’ve ignored “hype”. We’ve stayed away from fast and easy decisions and we’ve been reluctant to join in the relentless circle of waitlists, drops and product lotteries. We’ve never liked a bandwagon, we’ve trod our own path and we’ve stayed true to what the Duke + Dexter wearer truly values – individuality, with a sense of purpose. 

It’s this mantra that we need to lean on now more than ever. This pandemic has warped our lives in a way we’d never have been able to comprehend just a few short months ago, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn lessons from it together.

It’s time to champion the good things in life; the sustainably farmed food on your table, the goods bought from your local independent business, the clothes on your back from the brand that look after their workers, and the shoes on your feet that can take you places without sacrificing the amazing things our world gives to us.

This isn’t an emotive plea to get you to change the way you live your life. It’s not an article to preach about the mistakes we are all making. It’s a call to action, to sit back, take stock and think – it’s an opportunity.

When normality starts to creep back into our daily lives, when we emerge from our homes, when we see our friends and family again, we’ll be met with a new world that we can all shape together – it’s a call to make it one to be proud of.