North East manufacturer pivots from making hairdressing and beauty gowns to PPE for NHS

With a company history dating back to 1973, Melody Gowns’ long history began by supplying gowns to small local salons. The business and its reputation for quality grew quickly and in addition to supplying “off the peg” gowns, the company started to manufacture bespoke gowns supplying to luxury salons across the UK. A lucrative contract win supplying uniform to Steiner Cruise Liners helped cement their reputation.

Today, the company supplies beauty uniform to salons, luxury spas, barbershops and colleges and count global brand names Wella, Saks, Regis and Trevor Sorbet amongst their customer base. A recent expansion into sportswear has kept the North East headquartered company busy until the Coronavirus pandemic halted operations. With almost 40 years experience, all Melody Gowns manufacturing operations in their UK plant ceased, leading to the difficult, but necessary decision to furlough dedicated staff.

The World Health Organisation has warned that severe and mounting disruption to the global supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) which will have an affect on the safety and wellbeing of key workers, something which UK companies are working tirelessly to ensure doctors do not have to make difficult choices about whether to treat coronavirus patients when faced with inadequate personal protective equipment. Several hospitals are expecting to run out of protective gowns in the coming days, with the situation worsened by the delay of a consignment from Turkey.

In light of the current crisis in the UK and worrying shortages of supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) for the NHS and care workers; Melody Gowns have been approached by Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to produce gowns to keep staff safe. Melody Gowns responded overnight, re-hired all staff and leased an additional unit to respond to the call.

The company have sourced fabric from one of their suppliers in Yorkshire to produce 4,000 out of 20,000 much-needed gowns, and reserved another batch of fabric currently lying in Barcelona to allow them to complete the order. The company are on track to complete the first order by the middle of next week.

Follow the company at: https://www.facebook.com/Melody-Gowns-1683777045236584/

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Melody Gowns would be delighted if LinkedIn users could share this post and help spread the word that UK companies are working incredibly hard, many in new areas of business, to help keep our key workers safe during the crisis.