Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Covid-19 pandemic and the consequential economic shutdowns have created unprecedented challenges for the fashion industry, including declining consumer spending and disrupted supply chains.
The Covid-19 pandemic affects the global fashion industry as governments close down manufacturing plants, and through store closures, and event cancellations to slow the spread of the
virus. The pandemic has had a major impact on fashion brands worldwide. At the same time, the fashion industry faces challenges in consumer demand. The Founder and Managing Director of Miss
Jay Couture Tšoanelo Jae Fuma said when the Covid-19 hit the country the business was facing closure and that meant employees were going to be without salaries during the difficult time.
“As an employer I had to come up with a plan and I identified an opportunity of Manufacturing cloth masks
and supplying Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to individuals, private sector and government ministries,” Fuma said. She said from selling only a few masks at the streets per day at the moment
they are one of the largest cloth masks manufacturer and suppliers in the country. She noted that they have selling points at the entrance of large stores in town and in the
districts and they also supply hawkers on a daily basis with cloth masks. “We have a mini factory that we use for large orders of cloth masks and apart from
that, we also empower Basotho seamstresses at the bus stop who also manufacture for us when the demand is high,” she said. Along with cloth masks production came
another business of printing as some people started demanding customization of their masks. “We started sourcing printing services from printing shops in town until the demand
was too high and we had to establish our in-house printing facility. From the idea of printing our cloth masks the printing facility has developed into a
business of it’s own. We are now offering printing services as our other revenue stream. We print cloth masks, banners, promotional stickers, t-shirts and
hoodies, crockery for gifts etc,” she said. Fuma said the presence of Covid-19 has taught her that in business, one has to be very innovative and open minded,
saying that is why they had to change their line of services and provide Covid-19 related services in the meantime to keep their 20 employees at work.
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