Armani, Prada, Gucci and many others. The fashion world is stepping up with donations of millions of euros, lab coats, masks and hand sanitiser gels to support those fighting to contain the spread of coronavirus.
Not only through donations of millions of euros: companies in the fashion industry have responded to the health emergency caused by coronavirus in a wide variety of ways. Some have helped support hospital facilities within the national health system with financial aid, some have launched fundraising campaigns to be donated to public organisations, and others have converted their factories to produce lab coats, masks and disinfectant gels for medical and healthcare staff.
Giorgio Armani was the first to support the institutions and people working in the field to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic. After an initial donation of two million euros to the Protezione civile and to hospitals in the Versilia area and in Bergamo, Piacenza, Milan and Rome, the Italian designer decided to do far more by converting his Italian production facilities to manufacture disposable lab coats to be donated to healthcare workers.
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"It is moving to see you engaged in your work amid the difficulties and great efforts that the whole world now knows. And to see you cry," the designer wrote in a tweet as a sign of closeness and solidarity with healthcare staff. "All of Giorgio Armani is sensitive to this reality and stands beside each and every one of you: from stretcher-bearers to nurses, from GPs to all the sector's specialists. I am personally close to you."
Gucci, together with the Kering group of which it is part, has also provided substantial assistance to the public bodies on the front line against the spread of coronavirus. The group, together with its Italian brands and all those with significant operations in Italy, made several donations to some of the main healthcare bodies and organisations located in Lazio, Lombardy, Veneto and Tuscany.
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The Florentine maison donated one million euros to the Protezione civile and another million to the United Nations' Solidarity response fund in support of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Two crowdfunding campaigns launched on Gucci's Instagram account were also directed towards these bodies; from 27 March, the brand has also been sharing public service announcements issued by the WHO. The brand also responded to the Tuscany Region's call to fashion companies, donating over one million surgical masks and 55,000 lab coats.
The list of fashion brands that have launched solidarity initiatives to help those who have been fighting for weeks against the "invisible enemy" known as Covid-19 is very long. The founders of Dolce & Gabbana also made their contribution, with a donation to Humanitas university to fund a study coordinated by immunologist Alberto Mantovani; while Ermanno Scervino, Valentino, Prada, Salvatore Ferragamo, Fendi and gruppo Miroglio asked their seamstresses to get to work making masks and lab coats in non-woven fabric to be provided free of charge to doctors and nurses.
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Following Armani's lead, the Calzedonia group was among the first to step in to tackle the health emergency, converting its Italian and Croatian facilities into factories for surgical and protective masks. Starting from an initial output of ten thousand units, the company estimated it would be able to meet a large number of requests from hospitals, the Protezione civile, local authorities, non-profit organisations and other not-for-profit bodies.
Some players in the cosmetics industry, such as Bulgari, L'Occitane, L'Erbolario and many others, have contributed to the fight against coronavirus by making up for the shortage of hydroalcoholic solutions for healthcare staff.
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Particularly noteworthy is the initiative of Bulgari which, after an initial donation to Rome's Spallanzani institute for the purchase of a new 3D microscope essential for research, decided to launch an extraordinary production run of hand sanitiser gel together with its partner Industrie cosmetiche riunite of Lodi. Hundreds of thousands of bottles will be distributed over approximately two months to medical facilities through the coordination of the Italian government.
Despite the economic losses inflicted on the textile and clothing industry, fashion companies have not been discouraged. Each, in its own way, has made a valuable contribution to supporting Italy in this moment of crisis caused by coronavirus.
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The sensitivity shown in recent weeks is a clear signal of how much potential the fashion world has to operate in a responsible and conscious manner. We therefore hope it may soon return to working with a new path ahead: one of renewed solidarity towards people and the environment.
