Gucci have become the latest luxury house to stand up and stake their claim in the global fight against coronavirus with a huge donation and a campaign to raise further funds.
The Italian legacy brand has pledged a total of €2 million to two separate crowdfunding campaigns. One is local, committed to help tackle the outbreak of COVID-19 currently devastating Italy by donating to the Italian Civil Protection Department (Protezione Civile). Another, a collaboration organised with Facebook, will go directly to the UN’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, which aims to support WHO’s lifesaving work across countries. This includes tracking and understanding the spread of the virus, strengthening patient care and ICUs, improving supplies for health personnel, including of protection devices, and accelerating the development of vaccines and therapies. Each campaign will receive €1 million.
As millions of us across the world are currently stuck at home in an effort to halt the spread of the disease, Gucci also called on their friends and Instagram followers for donations to help scientists developing vaccines and treatments, as well as medical staff in desperate need of PPE (personal protective equipment). Their “We’re All In This Together” campaign is a call to action that launched today with an illustration gifted by Rome-based artist MP5, depicting a person with their hand on their heart.
“This pandemic calls us to an unexpected task, but it is a call to which we respond decisively, advocating the selfless work carried out by health workers, doctors and nurses on the front lines every day in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, in Italy and in the rest of the world,” Alessandro Michele said in a statement today. “Their generosity and courage light our way forward in these difficult days. By supporting each other and helping those who are most vulnerable among us, we will be able to overcome this crisis: united, even more than before.”
The donation comes after Gucci’s parent company, Kering, pledged the production of over 1 million masks and gowns for healthcare professionals. Concluding the letter, Alessandro Michele and Marco Bizzarri wrote, “Gucci has created a world, open and free: a Gucci global community,” a letter from Alessandro and Marco Bizzarri concluded. “We ask all of you to be the changemakers in this crisis, to stand together with us in the fight against the Coronavirus. We are all in this together.”