In a pandemic, shoulder pads, sewing machines and sequins don’t pass as essential items.
So on March 20th, after Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered non-essential businesses to close, sisters Veronica and Deborah Kim were forced to lay off eight employees at Panda International, a trim and notions store -- which sells ornaments like ruffles or ribbon that are applied to garments, and sewing tools like needles and thread -- on West 38th Street that had been popular with fashion students and designers. Then, they closed their doors.
“We were worried,” said Veronica, who at 28 is the CEO of the company founded by her father, Won Koo “David” Kim. “We had to send a lot of our employees home and furlough them, and just wait for whatever happened next.”
What happened next was a sudden surge of orders for elastic on their normally sleepy Ebay site, triggered by an army of Americans on a mission to equip the elderly and healthcare workers with face masks to ward off the coronavirus.
With hospitals and nursing homes in short supply of masks, hundreds of volunteers across the country have been hunkering down behind their sewing machines to produce their own. But elastic, which is used to secure the masks behind the ears, has been so hard to find, the amateur clothiers are reportedly resorting to using ponytail clips, headbands, and strips of cloth as substitutes.
Deborah Kim, 24, said orders for quarter-inch and one-eight inch corded and braided elastic were coming in from places as far away as Indiana, Kentucky, and even California.
She said part of the boost in orders came from fashion designers who had gotten the go-head from Cuomo to produce masks, and listed Panda International as a source for materials.
The Kims kept their doors closed to walk-in customers, but inside, they quickly pivoted to create an online operation focused on getting elastic to customers, even hiring back two of the eight employees they had laid off to help.
One of their new customers was Karen Allvin, a tech worker based in Virginia, who, with her siblings, launched a GoFundMe project, “Let’s Breathe,” to send thousands of masks to the elderly in nursing homes and healthcare workers. A worker at a local bridal shop tipped Allvin off to Panda.
“I cleared out about six different fabric stores of as much quarter-inch elastic as I could find and quickly realized the elastic was going to be our choke point,” said Allvin. “They have been critical for our success in getting out the now 8,500 masks that we've distributed in seven states because elastic is so hard to get.”
Listen to reporter Karen Rouse's radio story for WNYC:
Designer Lisa Sun, owner of the fashion company Gravitas New York, described Panda as an institution within fashion circles, including students at the Fashion Institute and Parsons.
“You buy your mannequin there,” she said.
The Kims’ father, Won Koo “David” Kim opened the store in 1993 after emigrating to New York and working in the Garment District. The two sisters, both born in the city but now living in northern New Jersey, took over the operations after he died five years ago from leukemia, at 53.
Deborah handles the accounting. Their mother manages their warehouse in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Deborah Kim said they remember playing in the store as kids.
“We used to have iron-on rhinestones, then do little projects as a kid, put it on our T-shirts,” she said.
These days, the biggest demand is for braided and corded elastic for masks, though, the Kim sisters said some people are ordering elastic to use for face shields or hospital gowns. Last week, they ran out of braided elastic, the more popular material among mask-makers. They are putting in orders for more.
They import the elastic from India and China, as well as at factories around the United States. Rolls of corded and braided elastic arrive in shipments that they then cut to length, package, and ship out to customers.
They do hope their customers can be patient with them as they try to fill the orders.
“There is still that kind of New York attitude of, you know, everything still needs to get done quickly,” said Veronica. “(With) the pandemic, it’s hard for anybody to do work as it was usually done before, so we’ve gotten a lot of frustrated messages from people who haven’t received their packages on time.”
Veronica said orders have gotten delayed due to U. S. Postal Service backups. That, she said, has been the biggest challenge of being back in business.
