Redress Design Award Alumni Provide COVID-19 Medical Gear Relief

PHOTO CREDIT CLAIRE DARTIGUES

PHOTO CREDIT TESS WHITFORT

This year, as we face the reality of climate breakdown, the world was confronted with a new challenge: a global pandemic, zoonotic in origin, called Coronavirus or COVID-19. At the time of writing, COVID-19 has reached over 20 million cases and claimed over 730,000 lives. New cases daily average more than 250,000. The ferocity of the pandemic took everyone by surprise, leaving doctors, nurses and other health-care workers at the frontline of the battle against the virus short of vital protective equipment; in April, in the US, there were cases of hospital staff using trash bags for gowns and using takeout containers as face masks.

Redress Design Award Alumni were quick off the mark to help. 2018 Alumni Prize winner and 2017 Finalist Claire Dartigues has created sustainable and safe fabric masks, handmade from materials usually used to make her signature polo shirts. Meanwhile, 2019 Finalist Anna Schuster has uploaded a series of mask tutorials on Instagram stories, highlighting the need for ordinary people to make their own masks - to take the strain off demand for surgical masks and ensuring medical staff get the equipment they need to do their jobs. The alumni stay true to everything they’ve learnt during their time with Redress. With two sisters working in the NHS, including one in an ICU ward, 2020 Finalist Grace Lant has sewn medical gear to send to health service staff. Using the directions from Christopher Kelly, CSM textiles tutor, she made the scrubs out of donated fabric and bed sheets.

2018 First Prize winner Tess Whitfort’s triple-layer masks, decorated with her signature punky paint splatter, are made from scrap and deadstock waste materials and are available for purchase online here, and 2019 winner Maddie Williams is also selling masks here.

Find out more about the alumni here.