Finding the Perfect Design Mask

ElMums Magazine 23/05/2020

When creative minds meet with a crisis, the outcome can only be a good one, as both Design Team and Sexy Socks have proven in the face of the current Covid-19 crisis.

The lockdown restrictions in South Africa were so severe that both companies had to think and act quickly. Government aid is not readily available and faced with the choice of having to let all their loyal staff go or find a way to enable them to keep putting food on the table, both companies turned their manufacturing focus to creating the one thing they would not only be allowed to sell under the stringent lockdown laws, but that would also enable them to remain true to their shared ethos of making a difference.

Within days of lockdown starting, both Design Team and Sexy Socks turned their efforts to making fabric masks. While Design Team was able to use its own in house fabrics, Sexy Socks’s CEO Dave Hutchison sourced offcuts from surrounding factories that were otherwise destined for landfill.

In addition to providing ongoing employment to their own staff, both companies have focussed on providing masks and financial support to poor communities and essential workers. Design Team supplies 10% of all the masks it produces to nursing staff and other essential workers while Sexy Socks makes a financial contribution to impoverished communities in order to support them through this crisis.

All the masks made by both companies have two layers of fabric. Design Team’s mask have a slot into which an optional third layer or filter can be inserted. Every mask is washable, reusable, adjustable and sustainably produced.

With the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) strongly urging people to wear masks at all times in public, and organisations such as Masks for All campaigning for the same based on the success countries who have legislated mask-wearing have had in the fight against Covid 19, it seems they have inadvertently stumbled on an entirely new business.

While it is not the intention of either company for this to become a long term range, they are both very pleased to be in a position to genuinely help people who desperately need that help both in terms of financial support and supplies. It may not be a permanent pivot, but it certainly has been a perfect one.

Both Design Team and Sexy Socks masks are for sale in Australia though Buxton Hanley.