The COVID-19 pandemic has set off a global recession that has hit the fashion industry hard – but now major fashion labels are hitting back, joining the fight against the coronavirus by repurposing their manufacturing capacity into personal protective equipment (PPE).
The company H&M has led the way among high-profile brands. Working with the European Union (EU), H&M has agreed to a request to share purchasing and logistics operations to source supplies. They will also be donating products to help curb the outbreak.
In the United States, other fashion labels have responded to the White House’s call for medical supplies by turning their production away from their usual fare to help address the spread of the coronavirus.
Hanesbrands
The companies Hanesbrands, Fruit of the Loom, Parkdale Mills, and others have worked together to build a supply chain almost overnight in order to manufacture 10 million medical face masks per week.
Inditex
Similarly, the company Inditex, in Spain, has made available its factories and logistics teams for the Spanish government. The company is creating and donating surgical masks for medical workers and for patients.
Under Armour
The companies Under Armour, Jockey International, and Tailored Brands have also mobilized their production facilities and supply chains to produce personal protective equipment, including face masks and hospital gowns.
Under Armour has undertaken a massive effort to manufacture and assemble face masks, face shields, and special fanny packs for medical personnel. The company is undertaking this effort for the purpose of supporting the University of Maryland Medical System’s (UMMS) 28,000 health care providers and staff.
The company has also announced that they will be exploring the prospect of fabricating hospital gowns for the statewide medical system. They will also be providing face masks to the company LifeBridge, a regional health care organization that is based in Baltimore. Under Armour is also in discussions with Johns Hopkins Medicine, MedStar, and other local medical institutions to assess needs for supplies and ascertain how it can help.
Levi Strauss & Co.
Meanwhile, Levi Strauss & Co has announced that it is donating medical-grade masks that it had stored for use by its own employees. The company is also encouraging employees to donate any extra N95 masks and other PPE to their local hospitals. At the same time, many Levi Strauss & Co employees have volunteered to sew masks for medical workers who are not directly treating suspected COVID-19 patients – the idea being that if these workers use the homemade masks, the higher-grade ones can be freed up for use with suspected or known COVID-19 patients.
Target
Target has also donated anti-viral and N95 respirator masks to first responders and healthcare professionals working in more than 50 different organizations. The company has announced that it will donate an additional two million KN95 respirator masks to the medical community.
Jockey International
Jockey International announced that it will supply health care workers who are on the front lines with much-needed Tier 3 Isolation Gowns. The company is partnering with Encompass Group and is working on immediately restarting manufacturing to produce the Tier 3 Isolation Gowns.
Jockey International’s efforts are expected to produce an initial donation of 250,000 gowns, with 30,000 to 50,000 produced per week. As production gets underway, the company will evaluate whether it can significantly increase output and if so on what timeline.
At the local level, Jockey is supplying the Kenosha Fire Department in Wisconsin with 10,000 N95 masks and 10,000 Level 1 surgical masks. The company will also be donating 10,000 units of scrubs to frontline doctors and nurses at the Jacob K Javits Convention Center in New York City. This news comes after news that the Jacob K Javits Center has been turned into a temporary hospital to handle the overflow of COVID-19 patients.
Milliken & Company
The global textile company Milliken & Company has announced that it will manufacture critical barrier protection fabrics for use in medical gowns and medical headcovers, both important items of PPE for healthcare professionals. Milliken & Company is also researching and developing materials to be incorporated into N95-grade masks.
Milliken & Company explained that these innovations are complementary to the firm’s current range of products. The company already has many products that can be used to help create temporary shelters in situations in which it is necessary to create transitory, short-term hospitals in the field.
RadiciGroup
The company RadiciGroup announced a delivery of the first 5,000 gowns it expects to donate to Papa Giovanni XIII hospital in Bergamo, Italy. This news came after the company called on local garment manufacturers to work with it in creating an approved production chain for the purpose of manufacturing PPE for medical personnel.
QIMA
In China, where the novel coronavirus outbreak originally began in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, the supplier compliance service provider QIMA is offering its inspections services free of charge to improve the production of both disposable filtering face masks and medical protective gear.
The company’s quality inspections are performed prior to shipment. The company sends qualified inspectors to production sites in order to check the quality of the workmanship, assess quantities, packaging, labeling, and to ensure that the factories the company inspects are provided with the requisite certificates and export licenses.
These moves come at a time when all of the major and minor players in the fashion industry have been badly hit by the recession that has come in the wake of COVID-19. H&M, for example, is facing job cuts as a consequence of slumping sales. The company closed 68% of its 5,062 stores because of the coronavirus.
In the United States, over a third of retail stores have closed or are closing, accounting for 31% of floor space. Like workers in so many other industries, retail workers and textile workers are faced with layoffs.
These are dire times for the fashion industry as well as for the world, but the massive mobilization of so many major companies toward the purpose of producing personal protective equipment to combat COVID-19 points to a tremendous capacity for resilience and recovery.