Cláudia Azevedo Lopes
Concreto, the Portuguese clothing brand of the Valerius group, has launched a social mask collection, a strategy to curb the disruption in sales felt with the Covid-19 pandemic. A solution that more than creating of a new product, different and currently mandatory, also bets on sustainability, since its raw materials came exclusively from fabric surpluses that the group had in their warehouse.
“We were already selling our summer collection, and of course we felt a drop in sales”, reveals Teresa Marques Pereira, CEO of Concreto. It was time to roll up their sleeves and start turning the situation around.
“We developed our own prints and had plenty of surplus fabric in our warehouse, which is normally used for second orders, when stores run out of stock. However, that wasn’t occurring, and we were going to have to keep all that unused fabric”, discloses the CEO. “That was when the idea of making masks came. Besides recycling the entire fabric surplus we had, they have the advantage of being made with the same materials as our summer collection, making it possible to match the masks with the clothing”.
Made of two layers of fabric and one layer of TNT (non-woven fabric), the masks are certified (level 3) by CITEVE, can be washed at 60ºC, and maintains all properties for five washing cycles.
Currently, the masks cost €6 each, come in 11 different patterns and are already being sold in Concreto’s recently inaugurated online store.