Athleisure Clothing Manufacturer Repurposing Skills to Respond to COVID-19

Supafit Brand: A Future-Proof Athleisure Company

In 2016 I founded Supafit Brand as a specialist designer and manufacturer of Athleisure apparel. Our core target is the consumer who lives a multifaceted, multidimensional life that often blurs the line moments of high physical activity. Our clothes have since been worn by various customers in the gym, Crossfit, running, yoga, and Pilates among other sports and fitness pursuits. At the corporate level, various companies have used our custom products for corporate team building, sports events, as well as uniforms.

Under the same ethos, we have since grown and evolved our products and services to meet the needs of groups and corporates that require distinctly designed, high-activity garments for teams and events. I never thought I would see the day we need to repurpose our clothing factory line into a medical protective wear operation.

COVID-19 Warnings in Early 2020

In late January this year, a steady flow of calls came in from some of our international African clients. In addition to complaints about the disruptions to imports from China, the main topic of the conversations was protective surgical and dust masks. As early as the, there was a growing and dire need for face masks, both the dust and surgical types in their different variant codes. What was surprising as the time was that, the destination of the masks was not Africa, but China. Effectively, the scourge of COVID-19 had led to a shortage of masks in the very home of the largest protective clothing market. This was an oddity and sheer irony in a global trade environment where China is typically the source of most of our manufactured goods.

By late January and early February, the team at the Supafit Athleisure Lab were already taking proactive and cautionary measures to manage supply chain challenges caused by COVID-19 lockdown in China. While our supplies (fabric and haberdashery) remain critical to our business, our entrepreneurial spirit enabled us to equally respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. We swiftly began small-scale R&D into the production of masks and other in-demand medical protective gear. Among the main objectives has been the testing of the virus protection efficiency of various fabrics.

We have since engaged a team of doctors, virologists, epidemiologists and our team of fashion designers to advise on the most suitable combination of fabrics, trimmings as well as design and aesthetic outputs to meet the demand and contribute to a long-term solution. 

Pivoting Our Production to Respond to COVID-19 & Beyond

Our main advantage at this point is that our team already had experience in medical PPE clothing, through design and sampling processes we had previously undertaken for clients in the medical and health sector. We are aware of the grave challenges faced by the health and medical sector, both at the private and public level in the collective efforts to ‘flatten the curve.’ We stand committed to playing our role through research and development into the best most suitable fabrics and garment outputs to meet industry and consumer standards.  

 We have since opened up our factory floor space and repurposed a portion of our operations to the rapidly growing demand. Our products include:

• 3-Ply Surgical Masks
• Polyester Fashion Masks
• Coveralls
• Aprons
• Scrubs

Our management team is currently engaging with the relevant government departs and agencies for support. The purpose of our engagement with government stakeholders is to enable us to keep our staff safe, screened and healthy, and our workplace sanitized, capacitated and suitable to fulfil the current and future production demand. Although we have been granted the necessary permits to remain in operation, our team continues to make full use of all remote working and technological tools that enable us to remain active as an Essential Services business, while adhering to the call to ‘Stay at Home.’

We are currently open to trade, request for donations, partnerships and other suggestions within the limits of assisting the South African government and our greater SADC region deal with the spread of COVID-19.

 Kindly contact me on M: +27 83 766 2755 E: [email protected] for more info/enquiries.