Iconic Worldwide gets creative with fashionable face masks
KUCHING: Incorporating festive patterns into their face masks is one way for Bursa-listed Iconic Worldwide Bhd (Iconic Worldwide) to make its products stand out from its competitors, especially as the personal protective equipment (PPE) industry grows exponentially.
As one of the many companies venturing into face mask production during this pandemic, the tourism and property development company first saw a need to locally produce face masks last year as a large part of Malaysia’s supply came from China.
“Producing it locally can give our customers assurance on the origins of the product and the high quality materials that go into making our face masks,” revealed executive director Katherine Tan in an interview with The Borneo Post. “All of our facilities operate according to world-class manufacturing standards with full quality control measures ensuring hygiene and safety requirements in order to qualified for ISO, CE, European Standards and ASTM endorsements.
“As for patterns and designs, consumers have also indicated an increasing preference for decorative face masks,” she added. “As wearing face masks become a norm, people are looking for alternatives besides the common blue or white face masks.
“Therefore, we have produced something that fulfils both style and protection with Iconic Medicare’s decorative three-ply face masks.”
Tan believed that incorporating fashion into face masks, which has become a daily necessity, makes it more enjoyable for people while not compromising on the effectiveness of the product in preventing the spread of viruses.
She recapped that Iconic Worldwide first thought of this when donating face masks to frontliners during the Movement Control Order and realised that there were problems with sourcing from China such as time delays and quality assurance.
The group then decided to take on the challenge of supplying locally made face masks.
“In the beginning, the venture was kickstarted with a focus on the northern region of Malaysia, before gradually moving down to other parts of the country.
“We initially started with one production line, and currently we have expanded to 10 production lines,” Tan said. “We have also successfully obtained the CE and ISO certifications for our three-ply face mask, so we can even look towards exporting our products overseas.”
When asked about Iconic Worldwide’s divergence from its core businesses of tourism and property development, Tan said revealed that many components that contribute towards a successful tourism and property development business apply in venturing into face masks.
“In fact, one of the main reasons why we went into this is because we saw an opportunity during the pandemic – when tourism and property came to a halt – for our employees working in our core segments to harness and apply their skills in a new industry,” she explained.
“Not only did our employees and management enjoy challenging themselves in a new area, this meant that we could keep most, if not all of our company people in employment.”
Unlike in the West, East Asian countries were wearing face masks long before Covid-19. In the new normal after the recent pandemic, Tan believed it will become customary for even more people to continue wearing face masks even in the absence of Covid-19.
“The awareness and concern for hygiene has greatly increased due to the pandemic, and we believe that people will continue to remain vigilant even after all this is over.
“For the disposable face masks business, our target is to reach a production capacity of 220 million pieces annually to match the demand with a reliable supply, as well as enable many more to enjoy using our products.”
Currently, Iconic Worldwide is producing more than 10 million pieces per month, and the group is in the midst of setting up our new N95 mask production machine.
“Eventually, we aim to become the top face mask manufacturer in Malaysia,” she concluded.