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Luxury brands shifting production to high-demand medical equipment
The coronavirus pandemic is negatively affecting many industries, including the fashion industry. Though companies are losing business, some are taking this as an opportunity to utilize their assets to give back to the communities affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Italian designer, Georgio Armani, donated €1.25 million to hospitals in Italy.
Another Italian Brand, Prada, is committing to manufacturing 110,000 surgical face masks and 80,000 medical overall in the Tuscany region also donating six intensive care units to hospitals in Milan. The main Prada factory located in Montone is working on utilizing their facility to manufacture much-needed medical equipment that they will distribute through local healthcare personnel until April 6.
The LVMH hand gels are packaged in Christian Dior hand soap bottles pic.twitter.com/bKQQoLWO18
— Shelby Ivey Christie (@bronze_bombSHEL) March 22, 2020
The luxury brand conglomerate, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey (LVMH), donated 40 million surgical masks for French healthcare workers, expecting the first batch of 10 million to come in the next couple of days with the remaining 30 million to be delivered within several weeks. LVMH also donated $2.27 million (16 million renminbi) to The Red Cross Society of China back in January. The CEO of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, announced they will be utilizing their cosmetics manufacturing facilities including Christian Dior, Givenchy, and Guerlain to produce hand sanitizer.
The luxury conglomerate Kering that owns Gucci, Balenciaga, and Saint Laurent is working to repurpose their production facilities in Paris and Angers to make more medical face masks while adhering to the strict compliance measures. Kering is also working on donating 3 million face masks from China and donated to hospitals in Lazio, Lombardy, Tuscany, and Veneto.
.@KeringGroup supports the fight of the Covid-19 virus in France, Italy and China, together with #Gucci, which aims to donate up to 1.1 million surgical masks and 55,000 medical overalls to Italian hospitals and healthcare workers in the coming weeks. More https://t.co/vIDce2VevC pic.twitter.com/Iwhzm0Gkwg
— gucci (@gucci) March 23, 2020
Gucci announced they will be donating 55,000 medical overalls and 1,100,000 surgical masks. The CEO of Gucci, Marco Bizzarri, donated £85,000 ($91,000 USD) to the most affected region in Emilia-Romangna, Italy.
The fast-fashion company, H&M, offered to help the European Union by altering their supply chains to start producing medical equipment. The holding company of Mango and Zara, Inditex, contributed the donation of 2 million face masks across Spain.