What has Prada got to do with a women's religious order and with inmates in Italian prisons? Fashionistas, please don't fret, Miuccia hasn't decided to become a nun and she hasn't been arrested. The common factor between them is the fact that they recently joined the effort to fight against the Coronavirus outbreak in Italy (at the time of writing this post the country has recorded more than 100,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths) and are currently producing face masks.
As the virus quickly spread, it became clear that there was an immediate need for specific medical supplies, especially masks and personal protective equipment (PPE) and the response from the fashion industry, but also from smaller factories and independent workshops and designers has been great. In some Italian regions, including Lombardy and Tuscany, where there are prisons that have garment laboratories (Milan-based prisons San Vittore, Opera, Bollate and Monza, for example), inmates are also sewing face masks.
After receiving a request from the Tuscany region, Prada started making 110,000 sanitary masks and 80,000 medical overalls for health-care personnel in Montone (Perugia). This is the only factory still operative belonging to the Italian fashion group and it is supported by a network of suppliers also based in Italy. Daily deliveries of these materials should be completed by April 6. On top of that, a couple of weeks ago, Prada's Patrizio Bertelli and Miuccia Prada, along with chairman Carlo Mazzi, donated six intensive care units to Milan's Vittore Buzzi, Sacco and San Raffaele hospitals.
After an initial donation of 1.25 million euros to the Luigi Sacco and San Raffaele hospitals and the Istituto dei Tumori in Milan, as well as the Istituto Lazzaro Spallanzani in Rome, and the Italian Protezione Civile (Civil Protection), Armani decided to donate funds also to hospitals in Bergamo and Piacenza and the Versilia hospital in Tuscany. Besides, the company also started producing in all its Italian factories (four) disposable smocks for health-care providers.
In Italy there have been a wide range of projects revolving around face masks: printing plants like Grafica Veneta, located in the province of Padua and printing 300 million books a year, reconverted to make face masks; Alba-based textile firm Miroglio Group, produced instead washable masks that can be ironed and used 5 times. The company is providing them for emergency workers, NGOs and journalists.
Verona-based group Calzedonia also converted the production in Gissi, Avio (Trento) and Croatia to produce face masks: the new machines in these plants allow to manufacture 10,000 face masks a day, but the numbers will increased in the next few weeks.
Rome-based Talarico usually makes ties, but started producing face masks with fabric leftovers in March. In their case, they opted for a mask with a pocket inside in which wearers can insert a sheet of non-woven paper to maximise protection. The money from the sale of the face masks went to the region of origin of the company founder, Calabria. The production was suspended after a decree of the Italian government stopped all non-essential activities in the country to reduce the risk of contagion.
There have also been several independent projects about masks: local artisans and seamstresses in Miglianico, in the Abruzzo region, made almost 3,000 face masks, co-ordinated by the owners of a spinning artisanal workshop in the villlage. Even though these masks are not medical devices, they were washed and sterilised in a local laundry, then packed one by one and donated to the Civil Protection that delivered them to the locals.
Powerful fashion conglomerates and groups are helping in different ways: Kering, owner of Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen and Brioni, made a donation of $2m to Coronavirus medical research, and donated 3 million face masks (purchased and imported from China) to French health services.
Gucci, one of its brands, made two separate donations to crowdfunding campaigns, one for the Italian Civil Protection Department and another to the United Nations Foundation's Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund in support of the World Health Organization. The brand also announced it is ready to make over one million masks and 55,000 medical overalls in Italy when approved by the medical authorities (other Kering brands with factories based in France, such as Balenciaga and Saint Laurent, also announced they were ready to make masks).
The latest luxury brand to join in the efforts is Chanel that announced on Sunday it would launch production of face masks and gowns after its prototypes received the approval of French authorities.
American companies also teamed up against Coronavirus: inspired by JFK's quote "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country", some brands (American Giant, Parkdale Inc., Fruit of the Loom, Hanesbrands, Los Angeles Apparel, AST Sportswear, American Knits, Beverly Knits, and Riegel Linen) have formed a coalition set to provide medical-grade masks.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo appealed for medical supplies and fashion designers tried to help, among the others Brandon Maxwell who announced on Instagram that his atelier has started focusing on researching how to make PPE and in particular hospital gowns, while Christian Siriano's staff got instead busy making masks for non-medical hospital workers who do not need medical-grade protective equipment (like most masks produced by fashion designers, Siriano's are not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration).
Threeasfour gave a sustainable twist to their masks coming up with a washable version made with leftover fabrics from their "inSALAAM inSHALOM" collection (2012): they are sold on their website accompanied by a note stating that obviously these are not N95 certified masks and they don't prevent illness or COVID-19, blocking airborne particles or viruses, but they offer some protection.
The designers pledge they will be donating 10% of each purchase towards creating medical masks for the support of the health community in New York City.
Face mask-wise there have also been interesting experiments: Cifra, an Italian company producing seamless garments with the WKS (Warp Knitting Seamless) technique created the Warp-Mask in a high-tech waterproof, washable and sterilised Oeko Tex Standard 100 fabric.
Blueitaly also produces resistant anti-fog (for people who wear glasses) masks in polyurethane that can be washed with water and soap, but they are awaiting for the medical certification, while Giosport started manufacturing washable masks made with technical fabrics that already managed to obtain the 93/42/CEE 2020 medical certification.
Now, while it is great to see how the fashion industry has been reacting to this unprecedented emergency, it must be highlighted that, in most cases, switching the production to face masks and hospital gowns is a way to keep a factory going and the workforce employed, which isn't certainly easy in these times. Yet, as stated in a previous post, most of these masks are not designed for medical purposes, even though they are useful to create a barrier for everyday purposes and needs.
The most reliable masks are indeed manufactured by those companies that already produce personal hygiene products: for example, Pescara-based Fater reconverted its industrial line usually employed to make sanitary towels, and developed a mask that passed lab tests and proved effective against bacteria and biological risks. The company can produce 250,000 pieces a day.
All this race to producing masks should also make us stop and ponder if there may be some companies out there producing protective equipment with dangerous materials or in unsafe conditions. Consider for example the fact that fast fashion companies (from the Inditex Group, owner of Zara, to H&M) would like to join the effort and produce masks, gowns, gloves, goggles and caps for this emergency, and you immediately start wondering where their factories will be based and if they will be approved for safety, health, and environmental protection standards (or will they be made in unsterile sweatshops?).
Throughout March the Italian authorities have found all over the country counterfeit medical masks and hand sanitisers made in illegal laboratories with counterfeit trademarks and fake "CE" certification stamps, so there is already an emergency within the emergency.
Maybe we should also start considering not just the emergency, but also what will come after Coronavirus: we are making masks, but we will have to start thinking how to dispose of these potentially contaminated materials or how we can recycle them (in Italy you go out shopping for groceries with a mask and gloves; quite often supermarkets give you gloves at the entrance and it is not rare to find gloves discarded in the parking lot outside the supermarket by careless people...).
Alternatives to mask making have so far included producing hand sanitisers: LVMH converted the production facilities of its Perfumes & Cosmetics brands - Christian Dior, Guerlain and Givenchy - but Estée Lauder, the L'Oréal Group, Coty Inc. also went for this option.
Other fashion personalities and groups have limited themselves instead to making donations (among the others Donatella Versace and her daughter Allegra Versace Beck; Valentino Garavani and his longtime business partner Giancarlo Giammetti; the Geox and Diadora labels; and Qatar-based fund Mayhoola, parent company of Valentino, Balmain and Pal Zileri).
Is it possible to contribute in other ways to the global fight against Coronavirus? While in some cases the fashion designer masks may look cool, it seems like donating N95 masks to hospitals or donating money to research facilties working on Coronavirus are other options. And while we do it, we should maybe start pondering about something else as well: the pandemic has radically transformed our lives and the world as we knew it, and a global demand for masks reshifted the production from clothes and accessories to medical supplies, maybe proving that so far we have manufactured way too many clothes that we didn't really need.
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