Two Liverpool costume designers have swapped dressing movie stars for making scrubs for Merseyside’s frontline NHS heroes.
Jan Simpson, from Grassendale, and Jo Thompson, from Aigburth Vale, assembled a team of 28 people who usually create costumes for productions like Poldark, Les Miserables and Game of Thrones.
Jan and Jo decided to start making scrubs after a colleague told them she’d had a call from a consultant in Yorkshire who was in need of scrubs.
The women set about making calls to colleagues across the north of England and built three teams covering Yorkshire, Manchester and Merseyside producing scrubs for NHS frontline staff.
Jan said: “I mostly work on period dramas and I have done for the past few years.
“I design the costumes, and then I’ll get makers and get the fabrics and do fittings with the artists.
“The team we put together, a lot of the people work for me, they’re brilliant makers that we’ve called on to come and help us and they’re all from the local area.”
Initially worried about raising the funds to get the project going, Jan saw a Facebook post by fellow costume designer Dulcie Scott who worked on BBC show His Dark Materials.
Dulcie shared a link to a Go Fund Me campaign called 'Helping Dress Medics' dedicated to raising funds to make scrubs for medics.
Jan said: “We rang Dulcie Scott and all three teams joined her Go Fund Me Helping Dress Medics.
“Now there are 150 makers making scrubs for the NHS all over the country, mostly from the film, TV and theatre sectors.
“All our jobs came to an abrupt halt with the coronavirus.
“We saw there was a need and felt the natural thing to put teams of makers together to make scrubs in their own homes to abide with Government guidelines.
"And because of the ability of the team we’ve put together, we’re able to make made-to-measure scrubs for the NHS staff."
With help from Kitty’s Laundrette in Anfield – and after a generous donation of fabrics from The Fabric Place in Liverpool – Jan, Jo and their team of makers are now supplying scrubs and PPE equipment to the region’s hospitals and NHS staff.
Jan said all the volunteers are currently not working for film and TV as the pandemic has shut down many of the industry's productions.
She added: "Everyone is doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, nobody is being paid for this, it’s all voluntary.
"They’re all fabulous, they’ve given up so much time and energy to do this."
