Designer Gelareh Mizrahi worked at French fashion house Chanel, before founding her eponymous collection of colorful handbags in 2013. Clearly a woman with a deep sense of civic duty, she’s pivoted from designing to providing PPE to America’s doctors and nurses during the pandemic.
The motivation to take this on stems from a deeply personal connection.
“I’m in Miami, but my Mom is in Bethesda, and my brothers are in New York. One of them is a lawyer, but the other is a doctor. It’s why I started the efforts, to make sure that he had PPE, and then getting it out to all of the doctors,” Gelareh tells me.
“I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I remember the date, March 21st – because that is actually the three-year anniversary of when I opened the store in Miami – that was the night I stayed up, scouring for and sourcing PPE. So the way that it happened was, my brother’s a doctor and I were looking on eBay for N95 masks for him, and they were like $60 for the three pieces.”
An N95 mask is a particulate-filtering facepiece respirator that meets the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) N95 classification of air filtration, meaning that it filters at least 95% of airborne particles.
“There was already price gouging going on, it was crazy. So, when I told a cousin of mine ‘oh I ordered three pieces of N95 for $60 and I just sent it to my brother Isaac’s apartment’ she was like, ‘you know they have it in China’, and her Chinese manufacturer has been telling her that there are distributors that have the masks. So that night on March 21st, I got on AliBaba, I searched for medical goods manufacturers, I found this manufacturer in China that specialised in face shields and goggles, and this is just from seeing footage of what doctors were wearing in Iran and in Italy, I started communicating with her, and I placed my first order with her, I wired money, which was a big leap of faith. And she happened to be producing face goggles, face shields and was distributing N95 masks. “
After checking that she was ordering the right gear, Gelareh placed three orders that night for the doctors she knew who needed them. Not one to take chances, she also placed another order to be shipped to Miami, so that she could examine the goods herself to ensure she was providing the right supplies. An essential step considering the widespread amount of PPE products that are not up to regulations.
“I sent a wire transfer of$10,000, and this was while my husband was asleep next to me, no communication, nothing you know, and he had lost his job two days before, so he woke up the next day, said I can’t send a wire transfer, there’s no way you’re doing this, and I had the biggest fight with him, ‘you can’t do that, how dare you’ anyway, so, I resent the wire transfer, and they packed the goods, they shipped them, and a week later we had the goods in New York, in LA, and to me in Miami, and when I tell you this was on March 21st I feel like this is somewhat important in the details, because on that day, N95 masks were being sold at $1.75 a piece, which is normal, since then, this was about four weeks ago, the price has gone up from legitimate distributors to about $3.50 to $4.20, based on demand.”
Gelareh also told me about the wider situation she’s in the midst of:
“Everyone is scrambling to get it, as the healthcare system in the US didn’t move quickly enough, the federal government didn’t see what was happening, and they didn’t have enough of these materials in the US to begin with. In addition to that, the healthcare systems are not equipped to source and place these kinds of orders with this kind of turnaround, they don’t even have the budget to be able to pay for it. So, what we’re doing by raising money and donating it, is the fastest way to get it into the hands of the doctors and nurses on the front lines.”
“Since placing that first order, I’ve connected with everyone I can find who’s also doing this. So this is the first time coming from fashion, that I’m working on something where there’s no agenda other than getting these supplies to the doctors, like I’m not making money, it’s not about how cool it looks, or fame or anything, the only thing that matters is this.”Gelareh also stressed how essential collaboration has been to the success of her efforts.
Gelareh explained what she wishes the public knew about wearing a mask, and what the risks are, especially as the advice about face coverings keeps changing..
“I’m not in the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), but looking from the outside of what they’ve allowed and what they’re saying, in the beginning, if you remember they were saying ‘oh normal people don’t even need masks’. Then they were saying “okay, wear a scarf or cover your face”. And then it was “everyone who is going outside should be wearing some kind of face covering. this disease is so terrifyingly spreadable, without even knowing that we’re spreading it, it’s everywhere, especially in hospitals, and anyone that steps foot into a hospital needs to be protected.
“If someone’s going to the grocery store, you definitely need to be wearing a mask, but save the medical-grade equipment for the people who are knowingly exposed to COVID. So let’s say you’re quarantined with someone who has COVID and you’re going into their room to give them food, and you have access to an N95 mask, definitely wear it. But if you’re going to the grocery store or to the park, stay six feet away from people but save the N95 masks for the medical workers who need it.”
For more safety information and guidance on PPE, check out the CDC website.
Why is it so important that doctors have surgical masks, as opposed to the masks people are making at home? I know a lot of people thought you could donate those masks you make at home to doctors but that’s actually not helpful right?
“I know, the fact that they were getting on TV and saying that was really wild, in the beginning, I don’t know if you were watching the governor of New York insisting that people be making cloth masks, I get it maybe he was doing to make sure that the N95s were saved for the medical workers, but, anyone that’s in the hospital is really exposed. My brother, basically what he tells me, is that anyone who’s coming into the hospital now is assumed to have COVID, so even when they were coming in before for a heart attack or whatever it is, even those people are assumed to have COVID. So, it’s just really important to make sure that the doctors and nurses that are working with these known COVID patients are protected, and even people that are on other floors of the hospital that are there for other procedures or other ailments. So, we’re all not leaving our homes because we don’t want to be exposed to it in the outside world, but in the hospital like that’s it, you’re in the hospital, you’re exposed to it, you better be prepared and you better be protected.”
Gelareh’s involvement in sourcing PPE has really opened her eyes to the failing of America’s healthcare systems. She’s hoping that, at the very least, coronavirus will act as a wake up call.
“What I’m seeing in this process from hospitals and state levels is really horrifying, because this has been happening for weeks now, and you would have thought that, by now, I wouldn’t need to be doing this anymore – but the need is very much still there! Any time there’s a doctor, like these doctors don’t want to be looking for their own PPE, for us to be putting them in that position that’s not what they signed up for, that’s shameful on our part to have it be so. And I think the general public doesn’t realise that the need is still very much there.”
Gelareh also points out the troubling fact that hospitals haven’t been cooperative in efforts to get PPE to doctors.
“What we’re seeing is that we’re not getting clear cut information directly from the hospitals. If you call the hospital and speak to their sourcing department, they’ll tell you they’re fine, they don’t need the PPE. They don’t want to admit that they need it.”
“But they also don’t want to have to pay for it, so even if you say, “I have it and I want to get it to you, can you pay for it?” They won’t pay for it unless they’re really desperate. So of all those hospital systems that we’re working with, someone in our group is focusing on Louisiana, New Orleans, it wasn’t until they were really really desperate that they were willing to pay for the PPE, but even then what’s happening is the hospitals are hoarding because they don’t know how long this will last.”
“It’s so important that the doctors and nurses get it directly into their own hands. Why shouldn’t they have it? if anyone should have it it’s the people who are exposed to it.”
“So these masks are meant to be used per patient, so every time you go to a patient you’re supposed to have a new mask, but what’s happening, best case scenario in the US, is you get one mask per day. And that’s the best case scenario, other than that it’s one a week or one a month, which is not right. What they’re telling the doctors to do is wear the N95 and wear a surgical mask on top of it, and to keep changing the surgical mask, so the surgical masks are the blue ones that are a few cents apiece…”
I asked Gelareh what she would say to people who aren’t taking the stay at home order seriously. “This isn’t a joke. I think, just from living through this, you really see how much we’re connected in the entirety of the human population as a whole, to see that something that happened in China is now affecting us in Miami, New York, London. Everyone should have been on lockdown months ago..”
There is so much organisation that is involved in making sure that the masks are legitimate and get to the right people. Gelareh credits this organizational feat to the group of people she’s been collaborating with. I couldn’t help but think that her professional background must have helped her take this on, but she told me. “I think the major thing that benefited me was taking that first leap of faith in the beginning and just jumping and moving quickly and trying to get the PPE into the country.”
I ask Gelareh what she would say to our elected officials.
“It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the first one is basic safety and security, if you don’t have that, then what do you have?We’re in a time of war, but how do you send your soldiers to war without equipment or without armour? That’s what’s happening, how do you have trillions of dollars going to war efforts, but you can’t make sure that doctors and nurses are protected! But I don’t really want to get political about it, I’ve thought a million times since I started why am I doing this? How am I doing this? But I have to just accept that this is where I am right now and I move forward with it. But I see the power in the people in the localized effort. So it’s really important for us to be asking the local members of our community who are doctors and nurses – do you have enough PPE? Are you okay? Are you safe? Are you reusing? Because as I mentioned to you, the hospitals won’t tell you, the news isn’t reporting on it anymore because it’s not sexy, and this is the one way to make sure that it’s being done, through this grassroots effort.”
So what’s Gelareh’s bottom line?
“Don’t leave the house. Getting PPE directly to the doctors, but I think it’s equally important to make sure that they’re fed. I think during this time I’ve realised that even being involved in this has given me something to look forward to and feel not as helpless, and I think everyone sitting at home has the ability to do that, whether it’s making sure that they’re fed or sending gift certificates directly to doctors.”
As a small business owner and designer, Gelareh’s priorities have radically shifted.“I understand that beautiful things make people feel good, and I accept that creativity will still be needed in a post-COVID world, but it needs to be done with the realisation that anyone who’s making any kind of money right now needs to be doing more with it, and anyone who has any kind of voice needs to be doing something with it. We all have an obligation to do that.”
Since I last spoke with Gelareh, she and her group of collaborators have been able to secure a contract with 3M (a PPE manufacturer) for 300,000 pcs of N95 masks. The situation is changing every day, but what’s certain, is that individuals like Gelareh will continue to lead the fight to protect our doctors.
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