Valentino Garavani, Giancarlo Giammetti Donate 1M Euros in Coronavirus Fight
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MILAN — Valentino Garavani and his longtime business partner Giancarlo Giammetti are the latest fashion personalities to make a significant donation to help fight the coronavirus infection.
The couture fashion house founder and Giammetti are donating, through their foundation, 1 million euros to the Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli hospital in Rome supporting the new Columbus Covid 2 unit, which was established by the healthcare center to treat COVID-19 patients.
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“In such a dramatic moment for the entire world, we wanted to offer our support to win this crucial battle against such an invisible yet terrible enemy,” said Garavani. “We feel grateful for all the women and men that are painstakingly fighting day and night to save precious lives in our hospitals. We will never stop thanking them for the love and passion with which they’re handling this challenge.”
The hospital’s new unit, which was officially unveiled on March 21, will be fully operative starting next week.
This is not their first philanthropic effort. For example, for the past five years, initially independently and then through the foundation, which was established in 2016, the two men have supplemented the incomes of 21 needy Roman families with 1,000 euros each month. Last year the Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti also committed funding to the CFDA’s Fashion Manufacturing Initiative, which connects emerging American designers to production resources.
As reported, on Thursday Giorgio Armani said his namesake group was converting all its Italian production sites to produce single-use medical overalls and donated 750,000 euros to the hospitals of Bergamo and Piacenza, both badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the abringing the total of his donations to 2 million euros.
The same day, Gucci pledged 2 million euros to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.making two separate donations to crowdfunding campaigns, after the Kering-owned brand’s chief executive officer Marco Bizzarri made a personal donation of 100,000 euros to the Ausl IRCCS of Reggio Emilia on March 10.
Other Italian fashion personalities have been supporting the fight against COVID-19 in recent weeks, including Donatella Versace along with her daughter Allegra Versace Beck; Prada’s co-ceo’s Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, along with the group’s chairman Carlo Mazzi and Mario and Enrico Moretti Polegato, presidents of the Geox and Diadora labels, respectively.
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