Giorgio Armani, Prada Offer Sites for Vaccination Campaign
MILAN — The Giorgio Armani Group and the Prada Group said Tuesday they have agreed to help speed up the vaccination campaign in Italy.
Armani will allow vaccines to be carried out at Milan’s Armani/Teatro, designed by Tadao Ando.
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The use of the theater, generally the stage for Armani’s fashion shows, will help reduce the heavy workload of health care facilities, ensuring that their resources are used to increase assistance and care, said the company. Armani’s employees, which total more than 3,000 in Italy, will be able to be vaccinated on a voluntary basis.
The vaccinations will be carried out in Lombardy, followed by the country’s other regions “as soon as it becomes possible,” said the company. “This is one of the initiatives strongly supported by Giorgio Armani, who wishes to protect and support his employees at a time that is still highly critical for everyone’s health.”
Patrizio Bertelli, chief executive officer of Prada, said that, as it has done in the past, the company “is completely available to take on an active role to protect the health of its employees against COVID-19.” Accordingly, all of Prada’s headquarters and plants in Italy will be used for the vaccination campaign.
Prada has estimated a potential number of more than 3,000 people only in Tuscany and at least 1,000 in Milan eligible for the vaccine — “relevant numbers that could be our contribution to lighten the weight of the health system in the next months,” concluded Bertelli.
The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has been slow in Italy and a number of Italian fashion companies are taking steps to help speed up the process.
As reported, Gucci on Monday said it was joining an initiative by Italy’s association Confindustria.
As soon as Italian national and regional health regulations allow it, Gucci will open the doors of its corporate offices and facilities to vaccinate more than 6,000 Italian employees, from offices, factories and retail.
The decision is in line with that of parent company Kering, which is offering its own spaces and those of the other brands of the group operating in Italy.
The president of Confindustria, Carlo Bonomi, who had launched a project to map companies willing to offer their spaces for the vaccination campaign, said more than 7,000 companies in Italy had adhered to the initiative in a week, “showing a great sense of responsibility and attention” toward the community, praising the generosity of entrepreneurs.
More than 10,000 locations were offered, including spaces in airports and train stations.
Brunello Cucinelli, OVS and Benetton are also making their sites available.
This kind of proactive stance mirrors that of the industry last year, when at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, several fashion companies started producing surgical protective masks and medical overalls.
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