The same laboratory that crafts your favourite Guerlain, Givenchy and Dior beauty products is now a fast-moving producer of sanitising gel, mobilised to prevent the risk of a shortage of hydroalcoholic gel in France. 

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At present, around 50 tons of sanitising gel per week are being distributed free-of-charge across French hospitals, with the LVMH Group (which also owns Bvlgari) also expecting a shipment of 10 million masks in France this week. Plans are currently being made by the group to mitigate the shortage of masks in Italy and Spain.

On 26 March, Italian fashion house Gucci announced a donation of €1mil each for 2 separate funds: one for the plight of its home country by way of the Italian Civil Protection Department through Intesa Sanpaolo’s ForFunding crowdfunding platform.

The funds will help reinforce Italy’s strained health services and facilitate the creation of new ICU beds, among other crucial hospital supplies. 

The second is for the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund in support of the World Health Organization through a Facebook US$10 million matching fundraiser.

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The brand has called on the global Gucci Community to contribute to this fund, which will help keep The World Health Organisation’s lifesaving work going across countries, strengthening patient care and ICUs, improving supplies for health personnel and accelerating the development of vaccines.

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Starting from 27 March, Gucci will even be opening its social media accounts (boasting a 70mil-strong following) to the World Health Organisation to help spread accurate public service information. 

This month, Versace’s chief creative officer, Donatella Versace and her daughter, Allegra Versace Beck announced that they would be donating €200,000 to the intensive care department of San Raffaele hospital in Milan.

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“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 to take care of our loved ones,” Donatella said in a statement.

Since 18 March, Prada has been hard at work on the production of 80,000 medical overalls and 110,000 masks for healthcare personnel in Italy's Tuscany region. 

The items are being manufactured internally at the Prada factory in Montone, Perugia, which has stayed open for solely for these production purposes in collaboration with a network of Italian external suppliers.    

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As of 27 March, all the Italian production plants operating for The Armani Group will now be used to manufacture single use medical overalls for the individual protection of healthcare workers engaged in the fight against Covid-19. 

Moved by the hardships endured by the Italian people, founder Giorgio Armani made a donation totaling €2mil to Italy's National Civil Protection Department and the Luigi Sacco, San Raffaele, Istituto dei Tumori hospitals in Milan and Istituto Spallanzani in Rome. The donation also covered hospitals in Bergamo, Piacenza and Versilia in the Tuscany region.

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In Redon, France, Baby Dior’s ateliers have kept their doors open exclusively for the production of face masks, assembled entirely by brave volunteers. In a statement, the French fashion house extended its gratitude to the tireless ‘petites mains’ who selflessly toiled to help protect frontliners against the pandemic.

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