Parent company LVMH will donate the in-demand products to French hospitals.
The parent company of Givenchy, Louis Vuitton and Dior is switching gears amid the global outbreak of coronavirus. Perfume and cosmetics manufacturing centers for fashion conglomerate LVMH began making hand sanitizer instead of luxury fragrances on Monday.
The French fashion houses will give the sanitizers to French health authorities and the Assistance Publique-Hospitaux de Paris for free to supply 39 hospitals. France has more than 5,000 cases of the coronavirus compared to about 3,500 in the U.S.
The decision was made out of worry that there will be a sanitizer shortage in France, USA Today reports. "LVMH intends to help address the risk of a lack of product in France and enable a greater number of people to continue to take the right action to protect themselves from the spread of the virus,” read a press release.
On Sunday, France closed all "nonessential" public spaces including restaurants and theaters.
Over in Italy, Donatella Versace and her daughter Allegra donated more than $222,000 Milan’s San Raffaele hospital to fight the coronavirus. “In times like this, it is important to be united and support however we can to help all those who are in the front lines, fighting every day to save hundreds of lives," the designer wrote on Instagram.
Prada's co-CEOs Patrizio Bertelli and Miuccia Prada, as well as chairman Carlo Mazzi, announced Monday they donated two intensive care and resuscitation units each to Milan hospitals Vittore Buzzi, Sacco and San Raffaele.
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