Fashion | Arts & Culture | Neville Wisdom | COVID-19
| Neville Wisdom Design Photos. |
Neville Wisdom spent Tuesday hunched over a sewing machine for 12 hours. Then he came into his shop Wednesday and did the same thing. He was meeting a new kind of deadline: hundreds of essential workers desperately in need of cloth masks.
Wednesday, Wisdom announced that he will be selling cloth masks through his website, as he also works with medical personnel and city staff to get them quickly to those who may need them most. He is doing everything out of his Westville studio, where he has been working with fellow designers Andrew Bottiger and Dwayne Moore and Brand Director Lauren Sprague.
All of them are practicing physical distancing in the Whalley Avenue space. He estimated that the shop, which has a fleet of sewing machines as well as virtual prototyping technology, has been churning out approximately 100 masks per day. By the end of the day on Thursday, the store was out of stock.
“I wanted to make sure I was doing something helpful and necessary,” he said in a phone call Thursday morning. “I have these skills, I might as well put them to use.”
Initially, Wisdom was inspired by his girlfriend, Bindu Vanapalli, an emergency room doctor who has been talking to him about physical distancing and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
After weeks of looking at CDC-approved designs, he began making masks she could distribute to her colleagues for their friends and family members. So far, they have come from a cotton fabric covered with neat, bright flowers with a print that feels right on time for spring.
He was quick to say they are not medical-grade respirator masks—but they get the job done as the CDC encourages all Americans to wear face coverings.
He has donated four masks to Katalina’s Bakery owner Kathy Riegelmann, a frequent customer of his who has kept her shop open for pickup two days a week, and pivoted her other time to making sweet treats for the Yale-New Haven Hospital staff.
Thursday, MakeHaven also announced that he has also joined the organization's Sew Good campaign, which pairs community-based sewists with the supplies and equipment they need to get masks to essential workers and medical personnel.
While a large number are donations, Wisdom is also using them as a small source of income while his doors remain closed. Typically, March is his first busy month of the year, because “no one wants to spend money” right after the December holiday season. But last month, operations came to a sudden halt. He postponed a spring fashion show that was scheduled for late March.
That translated to at least $18,000 lost, he said. If closures last beyond the end of April, he estimated that he will lose over $60,000 in projected revenue. In making masks, he joins other small business owners churning out face coverings to keep the lights on, including Todd Lyon of Fashionista Vintage & Variety and a number of drag artists who have turned their costuming skills into a source of potential income.
After announcing the project, orders have been coming in. Last week, he got a call from Doug Hausladen, director of Traffic, Transportation and Parking and acting director of the Parking Authority. Hausladen wanted to know if Wisdom could manufacture 200 masks for Parking Authority personnel, who are classified as essential workers and are still interacting with a number of people at New Haven Union Station and the city’s Air Rights Garage.
“I went to a number of folks who are in the community doing this work, and a lot of them said they were overwhelmed or out of supplies,” Hausladen said Thursday, reached by phone. "And then Neville said he could do it."
By Thursday evening, Wisdom had completed 150 of the 200 masks for Hausladen, and had sold out online and in the shop, where a limited supply was available for pick-up. He said he hasn’t yet crunched the numbers, but “for the first time in weeks I was able to have a little income.” He said that will be a help to the business as he navigates utilities for the coming months.
He added that he’s trying to stay calm and keep making masks—because it’s one of the only things he has control over.
“I just feel like so many people are in a difficult situation, and for me to be stressed out does not feel right at all,” he said. “Whatever is gonna happen is gonna happen. I can’t control the future. I can control what I do with my time. I can help somebody.”
To learn more about the Sew Good campaign and the work MakeHaven is doing to fight COVID-19, click here. To visit Neville Wisdom's shop online, click here.