How Christian Siriano Turned His Fashion House Into a Mask Factory
On and Off the Avenue
How Christian Siriano Turned His Fashion House Into a Mask Factory
By Rachel Syme
March 31, 2020
On the morning of March 20th, the thirty-four-year-old fashion designer Christian Siriano sat in the living room of his country house, in Danbury, Connecticut, watching the must-see TV of the moment: the daily press briefings of Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, about the state’s battle against the coronavirus pandemic. Cuomo was asked, by one reporter, whether he wished that President Trump would invoke the Defense Production Act, which would allow him to force companies in other industries to begin manufacturing desperately needed medical supplies, including ventilators and P.P.E., or personal protective equipment, like masks and goggles. “Look, if I had a New York State Defense Production Act I would use it,” Cuomo answered, adding, “If you’re making clothing, figure out if you can make masks. I’ll fund it.”
Siriano, a former “Project Runway” winner who has dressed the likes of Michelle Obama and Taylor Swift, realized that he was in a position to help. He had closed his atelier a week earlier, as the outbreak in New York City was accelerating. But his team of eight sewers had brought their machines with them. Siriano had intended to keep them busy—and on the payroll—with client orders for wedding dresses and gowns for fall galas. At noon, he tweeted at the governor: “If @NYGovCuomo says we need masks my team will help make some. I have a full sewing team still on staff working from home that can help.” Within an hour, a representative from Cuomo’s office had slid into Siriano’s direct messages and accepted his offer.
The governor’s office sent Siriano a stock pattern. The mask was not a medical-grade N-95, which requires special materials, such as non-woven polypropylene, to filter microscopic particles. It was a cloth surgical mask, with three pleats, elastic ear bands, and a small metal strip that could be molded to fit the nose. Siriano had a suitable polyblend fabric in his atelier, which he had delivered to each sewer’s home. For two days, the team worked remotely. (Siriano, who does not have a sewing machine in Connecticut, served as a kind of virtual Rosie the Riveter.) But, with each sewer working on her own, they were only able to make around fifty masks a day. So Siriano asked Cuomo’s office for permission to reopen his atelier as an “essential” business. He returned to the city and gathered the team under one roof (six feet apart, of course), where they could form an assembly line. In the first week, they produced almost two thousand masks. The first box they shipped went directly to the new field hospital at the Javits Center.
On March 25th, as the mask-making was in full swing, Siriano took me on a FaceTime tour of his atelier, which occupies a prewar Beaux-Arts town house on Fifty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. It sits on what, during New York’s Gilded Age, was the site of St. Luke’s Hospital, and in the nineteen-forties served as an office for the Victory Clothing Collection for Overseas Relief, a service that gathered warm clothes from civilians to send to soldiers in need. “At one point, I’m sure similar things were being made here,” he said.
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https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-and-off-the-avenue/how-christian-siriano-turned-his-fashion-house-into-a-mask-factory
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I love Christian. He's my all time fave Project Runway contestant, and IMO, the most successful. Thanks for sharing this story!
