A fashion house in Gloucestershire whose garments usually sell in London's upmarket Jermyn Street has turned its 'cutting edge' skills to helping the NHS.

Emma Willis is normally associated with fine shirts, ties and other items which have been worn by none other than Prince Charles and James Bond actor Daniel Craig, but these are not normal times.

Staff at her Gloucester headquarters at the elegant 18th Century townhouse Bearlands House now have a whole new range to celebrate - scrubs for hospital staff in the county.

And the business has started a Justgiving page to help raise £30,000 to fund the manufacture of as many as possible (as of noon on April 6 this amount stood at£11,624).

Punchline has the pleasure of naming it as one of the county's Business and Community Champion, an award backed by Gloucestershire local enterprise partnership, GFirst LEP, and the Growth Hub business network.

"Our bespoke cutter Samantha's mother is an NHS vascular scientist and alerted us to the desperate need for protective scrubs for hospital staff due to the current Covid-19 pandemic," said Ms Willis, MBE, in a Facebook post revealing the city business's mission.

"As of this week we have turned our cutting tables and sewing machines to the production of NHS hospital scrubs using the Swiss cotton we have in stock for speed.

"We hear the medics will be very glad of cooler cottons than the usual polyester cotton as they have to wear them under protective overalls and next to their skin.

"I have ordered 1,000 metres of our Riviera superior from Switzerland so next week we will be able to start making the correct colour but they are very happy with this weeks' multi coloured collection!

"We have a small team of our cutters and seamstresses working within the social distancing at our factory, trained to make the scrubs by head seamstress Kath Muir and Kath's son Anthony delivered sewing machines and instructions to those at home keen to support.

"The home team includes Syrian refugee Ibrahim Khalil who is particularly happy to support the NHS as he says Britain gave him back his daughter who was very ill when they arrived from Syria two years ago."

She posted a picture of staff member Lizzie (pictured) modelling "a pair of Swiss cotton scrubs she made in our hall at Bearland House in her lunch break yesterday!".

Staff, she said, were "so pleased to be supporting the NHS staff and are working full time when they could be furloughed at home."

"We would be very grateful for donations towards the cost of the fabric, £30 will cover one pair.

"When we are all back to normal we will put the names of our kind donors in a hat and with great pleasure make the winner two complimentary bespoke shirts of their choice."

If you would like to donate: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/styleforsurgeons 

Punchline's Business and Community Champion Awards are sponsored by:

GFirstLEP

https://www.gfirstlep.com 

info@gfirstlep.com 

The Growth Hub Gloucestershire

https://www.thegrowthhub.biz 

talktous@thegrowthhub.biz 

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