Vogue Creates Resources for Wounded Fashion Industry
On April 1st Anna Wintour announced that the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund would be repurposed to help the American fashion community affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to raise awareness, the fundraising and storytelling initiative A Common Thread has been launched, and “will tell stories about how the American fashion community is coping, how businesses have been affected, and how we all plan to move forward.” [A Common Thread]
Christian Siriano and His Sewers Help Make Masks
Spurred into action after seeing a Cuomo press briefing, Christian Siriano has turned his atelier into a mask-making production line. Using a stock pattern sent to them from Governor Cuomo’s office, Siriano’s ten-person team is now churning out around 2,000 cloth surgical masks per week, all of which are donated to area hospitals in need. [New Yorker]
Luxury Fashion Pitches Into the Fight Against Coronavirus
A host of luxury brands and corporations are using their considerable resources to aid in the fight against COVID-19. Burberry is manufacturing medical gowns for the UK’s National Health Service and funding vaccine research. PVH Corp, which owns the brands of Calvin Klein and DKNY, has donated millions of units of PPE to New York’s medical system as well as pledging $1 million to COVID-19 relief. [Town and Country]
Coronavirus Hits Fast Fashion’s Bangladeshi Manufacturers Hard
A reported $2.81 billion worth of work orders from Bangladeshi clothing manufacturers have been canceled, as fast fashion companies such as New Look suspend or refuse to pay suppliers. This fallout has left millions of workers, many of whom are women from rural Bangladesh, without any means of income or support. Dana Thomas, an expert on the fast fashion industry and author of Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes, told GQ, “There’s just going to be no work for months. I just can’t begin to imagine the poverty, the illness, the malnutrition. It’s going to be so profound.” [GQ]
Photographer Peter Beard is Missing from his Home in Montauk
Influential art photographer Peter Beard has been missing now for over 72 hours. According to local authorities, Beard, who is 82 and suffers from dementia as well as other health problems, was last seen in the late afternoon of Tuesday, March 31st walking near his home in Montauk, NY. Once married to supermodel Cheryl Tiegs, Beard has been closely associated with the fashion industry as both a photographer and style icon. As a recent Yale graduate in the early sixties, he began his career as a beauty and fashion photographer at Diana Vreeland’s Vogue. After leaving the fashion world to become a wildlife photographer, in 1975 he discovered legendary model Iman, who he spotted whilst on a trip to Africa. [East Hampton Star]
