Fashion designer creating masks for health care workers
San Francisco fashion designer Amy Kuschel was shipping spring orders from her eponymous women’s fashion brand when the Bay Area’s coronavirus shelterinplace order hit.
Immediately, her Grant Avenue design studio and showroom shut down and employees went home. Like other businesses impacted by the pandemic, she’s found herself and her career taking a turn.
“Our business closed and all the factories we worked with closed, it was devastating for us as a small business,” says Kuschel, a longtime wedding gown designer who made the transition to creating sustainable clothing back in 2019. “My husband and I asked ourselves, ‘What are we going to do to be of benefit?’ We looked around and realized we had all the supplies to make cloth masks.”
Kuschel quickly set herself to action. Knowing that a cloth mask on its own would not be sufficient protection for people working in the medical field, her original plan was to make masks for people practicing social distancing and protecting themselves in public.
Then Kuschel started hearing from friends and family members working in health
care: They shared stories about how many hospitals workers were resorting to reusing disposable N95 masks as new supplies were slow to reach them.
After connecting with Bay Area inventor and entrepreneur Sally Dominguez, the two came up with a strategy for medical professionals to wear cloth masks over their disposable N95 masks to keep them cleaner and usable for longer periods.
But even with the intent that the cloth mask would be worn as an additional layer of protection over a medicalgrade mask, Kuschel wanted to be sure that what she put into production would be as hygienic as possible.
Searching online, she came across a mask designed by nurse Jessica Nandino that she felt was the best pattern to follow. Not only did the mask have cloth straps, which are more comfortable and easier to adjust than elastic straps, it fit easily over a standard N95 mask. Within a few days, Kuschel had gathered a half dozen volunteers in her studio to begin producing the masks from her existing stock of cotton, poplin and chambray fabrics. She and the volunteers were cautious about keeping social distance during their sewing sessions.
Kuschel is not alone among fashion designers and brands refocusing their efforts during the outbreak. New York fashion designer and “Project Runway” star Christian Siriano was among the first American designers to announce that his company would suspend production on his signature red carpet gowns and instead manufacture masks. In Europe, LVMHowned perfume and cosmetic factories have switched production focus to making hand sanitizer. Since then, the Bay Area fashion industry has also joined the call, including Gap Inc., which is working with health care giant Kaiser Permanente.
American Giant, another San Franciscobased clothing manufacturer, is retooling its North Carolina plant in order to produce medically certified masks. It is part of a coalition that includes companies like Fruit of the Loom, Hanes and Parkdale Mills that is working closely with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The group estimates that it will eventually be able to contribute 30 million masks per week.
“When you get that call, you drop everything to be helpful,” American Giant CEO and founder Bayard Winthrop said. “It’s a reminder that retaining the ability to manufacture things in the U.S. is in our vital interest. This whole thing has really shined a light on that.”
Smaller Bay Area designers and fashion businesses are also making cloth masks at different scales, including former “Project Runway” contestant and San Mateo designer Alexandra von Bromssen, Mission District luggage brand Joshu+Vela, Fillmore retailer Zuri, designer Dema Grim and wedding dress design platform Anomolie.
To date, Kuschel has donated all supplies and paid for shipping her masks out of pocket. She started a Go Fund Me campaign to help defray the costs of producing 2,500 masks. Requests have already come in through social media from health care workers at hospitals including Kaiser Oakland, UCSF, CPMC, Sutter Health hospitals and even from people as far away as New York, Florida and Montana.
“The Go Fund Me will help pay for the labor to fill these orders more successfully and faster,” says Kuschel.