As COVID-19 continues to change life as we know it, a number of fashion and beauty brands around the world have converted their workrooms and factories into assembly lines for essential items. Here’s what some of our favourite brands are doing to help fight back against coronavirus.
Bulgari
The Italian jewellery company made a donation to the Istituto Lazzaro Spallanzani in Rome back on February 6 to help fund a microscopic image acquisition system that will help advance the institute’s ability in preventing and treating COVID-19.
Plus, along with fragrance partner ICR, they are producing more than 100,000 bottles of hand sanitiser for the Italian Civil Protection Department.
Burberry
The English heritage brand Burberry will be utilising their manufacturing facilities to make hospital gowns and masks for the NHS, supplying funding to the University of Oxford’s vaccine research, as well as making a contribution to a number of charities combatting food poverty.
Capri Holdings Ltd.
The company and its brands’ founding designers are donating over US$3 million to several organisations fighting the pandemic. The Michael Kors brand is to donate US$2 million; Versace is donating US$500,000 to Milan’s San Raffaele Hospital and US$100,000 to the Camera Nazionale Della Moda Italiana, and Jimmy Choo will donate US$500,000 to be divided between the U.K.’s National Health Service COVID-19 Urgent Appeal and the World Health Organisation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
Chanel
Chanel has made a €1.2 million euros donation to an emergency fund for the public hospital system in Paris and other French emergency services to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Along with retaining all its employees through the global pandemic, the French luxury brand is working with authorities to start producing face masks. “We are mobilising our workforce and our partners … to produce protective masks and blouses,” the company said in a statement.
Donatella Versace
Donatella Versace and her daughter Allegra Versace Beck made a €200,000 donation to the San Raffaele hospital’s intensive care unit in Milan.
“Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this disease and to all the doctors and medical staff who have been working heroically non-stop in the past weeks in the effort to take care of our loved ones,” they said in a statement. “This is when we, as a society, need to stand together and care for one another.”
Additionally, the Italian fashion house donated 1 million renminbi — roughly US$140,000 — on February 5 to the Chinese Red Cross Foundation to help with the shortage of medical supplies in the country.
Estée Lauder Companies
The Estée Lauder Cos. has reopened a New York manufacturing facility to produce hand sanitiser. They made a US$2 million donation to Doctors Without Borders and created a grant to help the NYC COVID-19 Response & Impact Fund.
Giorgio Armani
The designer has donated over €2 million to support a range of Italian hospitals, including the Luigi Sacco and San Raffaele hospitals, the Istituto dei Tumori in Milan and the Istituto Lazzaro Spallanzani in Rome.
Gucci
Gucci announced that it would be donating €2 million to be split between the World Health Organisation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and the Italian Civil Protection Department. It’s also encouraging its followers and customers to make donations of their own through a campaign called “We Are All In This Together,” which will launch on Gucci’s social media accounts.
“This pandemic calls us to an unexpected task, but it is a call to which we respond decisively, advocating the selfless work carried out by health workers, doctors and nurses on the front lines every day in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, in Italy and in the rest of the world,” creative director Alessandro Michele and president and CEO Marco Bizzarri wrote in a joint letter.
Kering
The luxury group initially made a donation of 7.5 million renminbi — roughly US$1.08 million — to the Hubei Red Cross Foundation on behalf of its 13 fashion brands in late January. Since then, the company’s brands, Balenciaga, Gucci and Saint Laurent, are manufacturing masks at its factories while also importing 3 million surgical masks from China to provide to French health services. On March 11 Kering also donated €2 million to health-care organisations in Italy’s Lombardy, Veneto, Tuscany and Lazio regions to help combat the virus.
L’Oréal
The group is distributing vast quantities of hand sanitiser, helping suppliers of small and medium-sized companies which are facing the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, and supporting organisations that help the disadvantaged.
The Foundation L’Oréal is also donating €1 million to its partner associations that offer products such as shower gel, shampoo and hydro-alcoholic gel to social workers and volunteers.
LVMH
The luxury conglomerate will be manufacturing hand sanitiser at all of the production facilities for its perfumes and cosmetics brands and distributing it free to French health authorities to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. It also pledged 16 million renminbi — roughly US$2.3 million — to the Chinese Red Cross Foundation to help with the shortage of medical supplies in Wuhan City and will also deliver 10 million masks in France.
MAC Cosmetics
Through its longterm Viva Glam campaign, the beauty brand will distribute US$10 million to 250 local organisations across the globe supporting COVID-19 relief efforts.
“The Viva Glam efforts are only made possible by the continuous support of the MAC community and those who purchase a Viva Glam lipstick, of which 100 percent of the proceeds goes towards these local organisations,” said ambassador Miley Cyrus in a statement provided by the company. “To get involved, you can purchase any current shade of the current lipstick or send a virtual kiss to those on the front line via Twitter or Instagram with [the] hashtag #vivaglam.”
New Balance
New Balance is donating US$2 million through its New Balance Foundation to organisations such as No Kid Hungry and Global Giving.
Nike
Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife; Chief Executive Officer Mark Parker and his wife, and Nike CEO John Donahoe and his wife, will donate over US$10 million to benefit local communities where Nike employees live and work, specifically, in the brand’s home state of Oregon. The Nike Foundation is also donating US$1 million to the global COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, which was created by the United Nations Foundation and Swiss Philanthropy Foundation to finance the World Health Organisation.
OTB
The Italian fashion group, which controls Diesel, Marni, Maison Margiela and Viktor & Rolf, has created the “Brave OTB Solidarity Fund,” where OTB executives will voluntarily donate a minimum of five of their contractual paid leave days to support its employees impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prada
Prada co-chief executive officers Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, along with chairman Carlo Mazzi are donating two complete intensive care and resuscitation units each to Milan hospitals Vittore Buzzi, Sacco and San Raffaele.
Ralph Lauren
The Ralph Lauren Corporate Foundation is pledging US$10 million to help the company’s team and communities impacted by the virus. The donation will help provide financial grants for Ralph Lauren colleagues in need, contribute to the World Health Organisation COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and aid its Pink Pony Fund by supporting its network of international cancer institutions.
The donation also provides an inaugural gift of US$1 million to the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund’s A Common Thread fundraising initiative, which benefits the American fashion community impacted by the pandemic.
Sergio Rossi
Luxury footwear label, Sergio Rossi, made a donation of €1 million to Milan’s Fatebenefratelli and Luigi Sacco hospitals. The brand also announced that all proceeds from its website will be fully donated to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti
Valentino announced that its non-profit arm, the Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti Foundation, will donate €1 million to benefit the new Columbus Covid 2 Hospital, a new area dedicated to COVID-19 cases at Rome’s Agostino Gemelli University Policlinic, which was inaugurated just five days ago.
“In such a dramatic moment for the whole world, we wanted to give our contribution to win this crucial battle against this invisible, but terrible enemy,” Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti said in a release. “Our deepest gratitude goes to those women and men who are fighting night and day to save human lives in our hospitals.”
Zegna
The Zegna family and Ermenegildo Zegna’s top management are donating €3 million to fight COVID-19 in Italy via the country’s Civil Protection that’s supporting medical personnel and volunteers treating the virus. The company is also converting part of its facilities in Italy and Switzerland to manufacture protective masks for its employees and has supported the purchase of ventilators and masks for a range of hospitals.
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