SS20 fashion is looking a little different to how fashion month suggested, with the arrival of COVID-19 being something that no catwalk forecasted. Rather than freezing in the face of the coronavirus, many of our Great British brands are turning their skilled hands to producing the NHS’s desperately needed PPE. Big names such as Burberry, Barbour and Net-A-Porter have all adjusted operations to help provide essential protection, while even big names such as Alice Temperley have been getting their hands dirty. Demonstrating their ability to nimbly turn their attentions to supporting our beloved NHS, we wanted to share some of fashion’s current feel good stories…
Burberry’s Castleford factory in Yorkshire may be known for its iconic trench coats. However, thanks to its staff’s extraordinary efforts, the designer has donated over 100 thousand pieces of PPE so far. Each day the brand has been producing roughly 1,000 gowns for the NHS with impressive plans to scale this up. In addition, Burberry has been funding the University of Oxford to support its research into a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, alongside a host of charities tackling food poverty.
Designer, Michael Halpern is amongst the admirable team of volunteers at a sewing workroom in Kensington and Chelsea. Known for crafting red carpet looks for the likes of Amal Clooney and Lupita Nyong’o, Halpern has swapped sequins for surgical gowns for the Royal Brompton Hospital Trust. Set up by The Fashion School’s Caroline Gration, the workshop is operating every day to produce 1,000 gowns a week.
Elsewhere, British heritage brand, Barbour has converted its South Shields factory, which is now open six days a week, to PPE production. Making 23,000 PPE disposable gowns for the Royal Victoria Infirmary and other North East NHS trusts, the brand is familiar with adapting its production. During both world wars the Newcastle-based factory turned its hand to creating military garments and trench sleeping bags.
Over on Instagram, Alice Temperley MBE, founder of Temperley London, has been getting stuck in to production, posting a video of herself handcrafting 60 face masks at her dining table. These will be accompanying her sister, Mary’s skincare brand, MakeSkincare’s gift boxes for NHS staff. However, as we can expect from Temperley London, these are much more than your average surgical masks. Bejewelled with hand-stitched embellishments and cut from Alice’s vintage Temperley London skirt, her face masks wouldn’t look out of place on her next LFW runway.
Daunting predictions from The British Fashion Council suggest that 35% of independent fashion businesses may not survive the next three months, and half of the UK’s fashion industry could be non-existent by the end of the year, signifying just how remarkable this commitment from brands is. However, what will this mean for them following the coronavirus crisis?
Whilst spending may be currently down in the fashion industry, now is the perfect time to engage with customers whose time online is bound to have increased. Building empathetic relationships with shoppers during this time and showing themselves to be supporting their home countries can only build loyalty with customers and encourage new audiences to favour them.
