The Sample Room has shifted its production to making facemasks available for consumer purchase. Director Julia Van Der Sommen discusses the process behind the pivot and what the response has been so far.
What was involved in creating the masks? Why did you decide to pivot in this manner?
Sample Room, a specialist development house for established and new labels, turned to making face masks after the pattern making and sampling side of the business was hit with a coronavirus downturn.
It was also evident that the use of masks globally was picking up.
So the team and I created a pattern and a process of development ensued.
Once we were happy with the pattern, it was made available on our Pattern Room website.
A small number of people, mostly in Australia and the US, purchased the pattern.
Upon return from our global Pattern Room launch trip in mid-March, we saw a very significant down-turn in our normal business.
The lockdowns across Australia certainly had many of our clients wondering whether they would even have jobs, so many put development on hold.
In late April, we were approached by Geelong Textiles to help develop and manufacture face masks for Yarra Trams.
It was a great opportunity to assist and also help make sure we could retain our whole team.
It wasn’t long before what we thought would be a short-term project resulted in an order for 12,000 face masks.
Our pattern makers are also experienced sample machinists so they jumped on the machines to reach a higher capacity to get the job done.
As my husband is in the high risk category for COVID-19, I decided to make a small number of reusable face masks for family and friends, so a weekend sewing bee with my husband and I started.
We then received a phone call on a Sunday morning from a close friend alerting us to the Premier’s imminent announcement that face masks were to be mandatory for residents of Melbourne and Mitchell Shire.
The phone started going crazy.
Plans were immediately put into place to ramp up production and a commerce website updated to sell direct to the public.
During our recent move from Brunswick East to Collingwood, the team realised we had accumulated over 400 rolls of fabric from various sources, many of these had the hydrophobic qualities we needed so we were able to use dead stock for many of the masks.
If it were not for face masks, it is likely that the amount of our normal work may well have resulted in standing staff down.
As it is, we have actually put additional staff on to help with the demand.
What has the response to the masks been like so far?
Initial interest for retail sales took us by surprise. We really weren’t expecting the response we had.
In July we sold around 5,000 face masks, but this rolled off significantly in August with around 1,000 masks sold.
These numbers are not enough on their own to cover costs, but we are still making masks for corporate clients such as Yarra Trams, some aged care facilities and a small handful of corporate orders.
We missed out on a contract with the Victorian Government, but are back in the mix having submitted a response to their recent Invitation to Supply.
We are also speaking with a number of other corporates to potentially supply their needs.
Interestingly, around 25% of the retail masks were ordered from NSW residents and a further 15% going to QLD, SA, WA and Tasmania and a few others to Northern Territory.
How are you communicating this to your base?
Orders initially were coming in faster than we could make, so we did little, other than some social media posts.
We’ve been hesitant about advertising on social platforms, as we have seen some quite vitriolic comments and varying opinions of the wearing of masks and we simply don’t want to get into that debate.
Our masks are beautiful quality and given we have been very selective with fabrics to ensure we comply with the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines, we also think they are as effective as a reusable mask can be.
But it is not just the fabrics and our masks are designed to fit really well, which helps to eliminate air-gaps, making the mask even more effective.
We have been reaching out to corporate contacts and continue to pursue those avenues to help ensure we can keep the doors open.
Enough time seems to have passed that there are plenty of off-shore made masks now available and at prices which are simply well below our cost to produce.
We simply can’t compete with $9 masks from a huge factory off-shore.
Those who have bought our masks and have provided feedback really like the fit and comfort.
Having a small size available has also helped those with smaller faces find a mask that fits well.