Dazed Media has announced the donation of 50,000 masks and has teamed up with the Emergency Designer Network to distribute them to charities and organisations around the UK
In March, fashion designers Phoebe English, Bethany Williams, Holly Fulton and Cozette McCreery launched the Emergency Designer Network in response to dwindling supplies of scrubs and personal protective equipment in British hospitals. With the extra strain on resources due to the Covid-19 pandemic spreading throughout the UK, the group of designers set about utilising their garment-making skills and manufacturing networks to provide much-needed PPE to hospitals around the country.
Today, Dazed Media announces the donation of 50,000 masks to the Emergency Designer Network. Having already distributed masks to Black Lives Matter as protests were held in London last week, the Emergency Designer Network plans to send 20,000 of the masks to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the UK’s leading abortion care charity which campaigns for women’s reproductive choices. The remaining will be distributed among organisations including Royal Trinity Hospice, Hampstead Marie Curie, Richard House Children’s Hospice and Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice, with logistics help from Matches Fashion, MedSupply UK and Shield.
“It is clear that masks are essential in the front line defence against coronavirus and that there is still an urgent need,” says Dazed Media co-founder Jefferson Hack, who, earlier in April, wrote an open letter detailing the “remarkable” ways the fashion industry has rallied in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. “I am proud that Dazed Media can use its position not only to campaign for change, but also to resource these masks for those most vulnerable in the community.”
Since the Emergency Designer Network’s inception, it has expanded rapidly: designers such as Simone Rocha, Lou Dalton, John Smedley, Palmer Harding, Roland Mouret and Teatum Jones have joined; factories like Fitzmark Cutting Services, Grade House, Abbey England and Black Horse Lane have lent their services; and institutions like Make it British, Fashion Roundtable, Central Saint Martins, and the V&A are involved. “EDN were honoured to have been asked to help in coordinating delivery of these much needed masks and are grateful to MATCHESFASHION for their help with this,” says the network’s founders English, Fulton, Williams and McCreery. “Soon after launching, EDN became a main hub for UK-based manufacturers, designers, furloughed machinists, PRs, hospital and care trusts where anyone who contacts is quickly offered support and solutions. In this time of pandemic, collaboration and the sharing of information is key and we four are very happy to be sharing our distribution network with Dazed.”
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service has been affected by PPE shortages throughout the pandemic. “BPAS is delighted with the support from Dazed Media and EDN,” says its head of procurement Mark Adams. “We are very grateful for the surgical masks being provided to us; this will greatly assist in our ability to provide quality care while keeping both our staff and patients safe in the pandemic. The people who reached out to us have been wonderful.”
Donate to the Emergency Designer Network here, and learn more about how you can help the network here.
