Luxury fashion house Chanel has announced that they will be creating face masks in France to join the fight against COVID-19. This comes after French health minister, Olivier Véran, announced that the country was using 40 million face masks per week.
Using the 3D printers used for manufacturing their Le Volume Révolution De Chanel mascara, Chanel is working on prototypes for masks and other PPE (Personal Protective Equipment.) The fashion house announced that among the face masks, medical gowns will also be produced in its workshops in France and donated to local hospitals in need.
“We are mobilizing our workforce and our partners … to produce protective masks and blouses,” said Chanel in a statement.
50,000 units of PPE are to be made available once approval from the French authorities has been received. €1.2million has also been donated by Chanel to help the French public health system during the pandemic.
Similar responses have been seen in the United Kingdom. The fashion house has donated £1 million to the COVID-19 response that will go towards the funding of PPE and local charities nominated by Chanel and the UK’s National Emergencies Trust.
Despite many of Chanel’s factories being forced to shut due to the virus, the brand has pledged to pay it’s 8,500 employees full salaries in France for 8 weeks and have guaranteed the salaries of all UK employees until the end of June. Bruno Pavlovsky, president of Chanel SAS, said in a statement that this is “to avoid placing a burden on public finances so that the French government can help the most vulnerable businesses as a priority and, of course, channel its financing into the healthcare system, healthcare workers and emergency services.”
