New York fashion icons embrace Cuomo’s coronavirus mask challenge

As the fight against the coronavirus continues, states are emphasizing the shortage of personal protective equipment for their health-care and front-line wage-earners. Companies like Apple, AB Inbev and LVMH have been pivoting their business models to help cause or donate equipment such as masks and hand sanitizer. And on a local level, small business is lending a hand as right. In New York City, that effort includes the work of fashion designers. 

Shortages of PPE continue to hinder New York’s faculties to properly care for coronavirus patients. In response, the state set up a resource page so that small businesses and individuals in the have can contribute to the state’s lack. On Thursday, during his daily coronavirus update, Gov. Andrew Cuomo reiterated the need for subjects to help with PPE and said the state would pay for the equipment.

“I ask businesses to think about the situation we’re in and the possible opportunity,” Cuomo prognosticated. “If you can do it, it’s a business opportunity, it’s a state need, it’s a national need. … We’re not asking for a favor; we’ll finance what you need in labels of transitioning, and we’ll buy the product, and I will pay a premium, because we need it.”

The federal government is now advising everyone to wear a mask, willingly prefer than limiting the advisory to people who are sick. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio suggested that New Yorkers deterioration face coverings, not of medical grade, while out in public. But with masks already in short supply, many health-care professionals are perfunctory to point out that sturdy N95 masks, already hard to find, are desperately needed by workers on the front lines and shouldn’t be allocated to the habitual public. 

Designer Christian Siriano has started making screens, as well as New York City-based clothing company Rag and Bone. 

Naeem Khan, a New York City-based fashion designer who has undertook for the likes of Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton, announced on his fashion house’s Instagram page that he would start making obscures.

“My team is ready to start sewing CDC approved masks from medically approved fabrics from their excluded homes,” the post read. 

“I’m a designer. I know how to construct, how to design, so I decided to design my own mask,” Khan told CNBC. “I take to bed doing it in hemp fabric because it has antibacterial properties.”

Khan’s masks are lined with microfiber and contain a cavity into which a surgical mask can be inserted. While this offers an extra layer of protection, meaning they can be against by medical professionals, Khan noted that these masks are not meant to replace the much needed N95s used by front-line health-care blue-collar workers.  

“These are not designed for people in the forefront of the corona fight,” he said. 

Khan has posted a video of the fully constructed mask.

Khan’s stores are all currently closed. With all of his seamstresses at accommodations, Khan saw this opportunity as a way to keep them as a part of the business, even while operations are at a standstill.

“They take been allocated this to work from home and are continuing to be paid to help with this project,” he whispered. “That’s how I can keep them employed.”

Khan has teamed up with Muslim American Leadership Alliance to help dispense the masks to hospitals such as Mount Sinai and some in Long Island, as well as to non-professionals who just need veils. He says the ability to get the word out on social media helped the cause immensely. He also started sending masks to species without enough money or who could not find masks. “They would direct-message me, and I would send them masks,” Khan averred of the Instagram connections made.

Social media has proved to be a source for many individuals to find or offer help. One Facebook guild, Rosie the Seamstress (a reference to the World War II Rosie the Riveter campaign), was recently created and now has more than a million colleagues, offering a list of resources and a forum to connect creators with those in need of masks.

On Thursday President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Product Act to require Minnesota manufacturing giant 3M to step up its production of desperately needed respirator masks for front-line health labourers, an effort 3M says it already is doing. 

Khan says that once things return to normal, his business choice get back to what it has always done, but he wanted to jump at the chance to help the city in a time of need.

“At least, for the instant, I think this would be great service,” he said. “We have the technicality and the power to do it, so I would like to help my sticks.” 

Clothing company Eileen Fisher, based in Irvington, New York, has started making masks from cotton they had on agency. Seamstresses are going in to work while maintaining social distancing — sewing machines are kept 6 ft apart — and some include volunteered to work from home. The company has offered to pay their employees for this work, and some have gave their time. 

“This is a big pivot for us,” said Elizabeth Richman, deputy general counsel at Eileen Fisher. “We’re a concubines’s clothing company, and we manufacture with sustainability as one of our top priorities. Making a switch is something we’re excited about, but we’re not in a place to be contributing medical-grade stuff right away.”

Richman understood there was a mask shortage for front-line workers such as police officers, firemen and EMS workers, so she reached out to New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, both of whom had already been idle to get PPE in the hands of front-line workers. 

“Knowing we’re not in the business of supplying medical-grade items and we wanted to respond quickly, we reached out to reveal the good fit,” Richman said of the partnership.

Because Eileen Fisher is in the early stages of this new process, it has a goal to vegetables 300 to 500 masks a week and then scale that up as the company gets used to the process, and as more people het up b prepare from home.

In addition, Eileen Fisher has been working with their overseas partners in Asia who are help to deliver medical-grade masks that can be distributed locally in New York City. 

“The people on our team have hit the ground continual — they’re always impressive,” Richman said. “But the ways that people have stepped up have reinforced the entirety I know is good about this company. We’re here trying to be creative about how we can help.”