Houston creators create masks for healthcare professionals

The coronavirus scans the world and creates new challenges. In particular, companies are unable to meet the demand for N95 masks necessary to ensure the safety of healthcare workers. Now the Houstons fashion industry is intensifying.

Megan Eddings, founder ofAccel Lifestyle, says an article she read on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advising healthcare professionals to wear homemade masks or bandanas due to the shortage of N95 masks that inspired it. She was forced to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic locally and nationally.

The Accels Prema fabric was created to prevent the growth of bacteria, Eddings told CultureMap. The fabric can be washed up to 100 times and will still be 99.99% anti-bacterial.

Eddings says it dawned on her that she had made over 500 shirts here in Houston that could easily be recreated in masks. Her supply chain team consists of 20 sewers and she notes that this number can quickly double.

We have enough supplies here to make 9,000 masks and I have 2,800 meters of fabric in my factory in California, she says. It’s enough fabric to make more than 100,000 masks.

Eddings and his team also told CultureMap that 47,000 meters of rubber band are on their way to the city of Bayou this week.

I knew it was serious when the president of MD Anderson replied to my email on Saturday morning within three minutes of sending it, she said. He is interested and wants the infection control team to analyze the tissue.

Other local hospitals interested in Accel Lifestyles masks are Methodist, Texas Childrens, Baylor and Memorial Hermann. The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York also expressed interest, as did the Yales New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut.

When Chloé Dao made the decision to temporarily close their Rice Village store last Tuesday, offering purchase requests by appointment only, she posted a video to her Instagram account the next day about the emotional roller coasters she experienced around the COVID-19 epidemic.

In the video, Dao says she wanted to play a role in helping her community by creating a pattern and by hand sewing 100 washable masks with pockets. She noted in the legend that the bag allows additional filtration but that because it is a cloth mask, it does not stop the spread of the virus. Dao also recommends washing the mask before wearing it.

With production in progress since its first 100 masks, available in small / medium and medium / large, Dao and his team have produced nearly 1000 masks for Houstonians who contacted social media.

The demands are overwhelming, says a representative of the label to CultureMap. We are now moving our efforts to help those on the front lines of the coronavirus epidemic; doctors, nurses, family members of doctors and nurses.

For those who wish to donate to Daos to continue producing these washable masks, click on here.

Houston-based, internationally recognized design house, Magpies and peacocksand Incln Studio, a local women’s ready-to-wear brand, recycle together to create non-woven polypropylene masks, which will be distributed to hospitals in the Houston area.

Founder and CEO Sarah-Jayne Smith and Vice President and Director of Communications / Public Relations Ahshia Berry told CultureMap that partnership has never been an issue for any of our brands , but more “how can we pool our resources and help during these times trials.”

Clarence Lee, designer at Incln Studio, tells CultureMap that he searched the studio to find elastic cords that were not used in previous collections.

“Waste as a resource and recovery material for proper use has never been more important than it is today,” Magpies & Peacocks wrote on an Instagram post.

Houston Arts Alliance and Visit Houston have donated excess promotional products and are now being deconstructed to reuse the materials from these masks.

“It’s actually a spun plastic, not a fabric, so it works effectively as a filter and is more moisture resistant,” Magpies & Peacocks told CultureMap. “It is more consistent and more effective for the current exposure to the service sector in the midst of the crisis.”

Lee, who is also one of the main designers of Magpies & Peacocks, and a member of the board of directors of the country’s exclusive non-profit design house, told CultureMap that for them it just boils down to helping in any capacity, especially after seeing what is going on across the country with the shortage of supplies.

He notes that they may not have all the equipment, but they do have the capacity and the time to sew to help those on the front line, to fight and sacrifice whatever they have.

“[Houston] is our home, and we all have a role to play in helping to fight it, ”he says. [fashion] industry has a major role to play and now is the time to show how valuable it can be. “

Magpies & Peacocks and Incln Studio aim to produce 500 to 600 masks and hopefully more if they encounter more materials, Lee told CultureMap. Seven volunteers help sew on these non-woven polypropylene masks.