Luxury brands fight COVID-19

APRIL 2020

When Vogue Business talks about luxury brands losing up to €10 billion in profits due to the coronavirus calamity, you can hear the world's fashionistas quaking in their Blahniks. And while people question the value of a luxury handbag in a world where there’s no one to flaunt it to, the great designer brands are responding to the pandemic in the way they know best: making and giving. 

Brands from Hugo Boss and Armani to Prada and Turnbull & Asser have repurposed their facilities in a war-style effort, manufacturing medical overalls, hospital gowns and masks, with LVMH and Bulgari pumping out hand sanitiser in their fragrance factories. Ferrari and Lamborghini are getting in on the action too, producing breathing respirators and ventilators, surgical masks and protective shields in upholstery departments that normally trim fine-grade leather for cars. 

Donating money is not only incredibly generous but a canny way for a luxury brand to make a big ethical statement. LVMH gave £1.9m to The Red Cross Society in China, and Ralph Lauren donated $10m to the World Health Organisation and the Vogue Fashion Fund to help save struggling design businesses. The Kering fashion giant and Armani both flung millions of euros at the French and Italian health services, while luxury jeweller Bulgari packaged up a new 3D microscope and Prada donated six intensive care units to various Italian hospitals. 

The luxury industry may often be mocked for its frivolous hedonism, but its response to the pandemic is admirable. There was disappointment when NET-A-PORTER and Mr Porter closed their factories, but when you found out it's because they deployed their delivery vans to deliver medical and food packages to the vulnerable of London, you felt renewed respect. 

And the queen of the philanthropists? It has to be Burberry, who are funding a single-dose vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford. All hail the check.

Read more about the virus's impact on luxury brands here.