‘COVID-19 Essentials’ Boutique Store Ensures You Slay The Virus With Glitz
Image via The Mall at Short Hills
Does your face mask match your work-from-home couture?
Now that there’s no shortage of face coverings for the general public, brands are giving consumers more creative options to fend against the coronavirus. A new retail chain retails upmarket versions of essential items, lulling customers into a sense of security behind a layer of rhinestones.
The eight-boutique chain, simply called Covid-19 Essentials, offers higher-end hand sanitizers, which the New York Times reports to be sprayed onto employees like “a department store perfume sample;” phone disinfectants; and small gadgets that help you open doors or press elevator buttons.
Its focus, though, is on face masks that look “fashionable and pretty.” Founder Nadav Benimetzky told the Times that he wanted to make aesthetically-pleasing face coverings available, since these essentials are normally “ugly and uncomfortable… and everybody hates them.”
Available coverings can range at a US$19.99 children’s size to a premium US$130 version with an N95 filter and built-in fan. There are cartoon-printed ones for everyday wear, sequin and satin pieces for formal events, LED versions for house parties, and masks with zippers at the mouth area for dining.
Business Insider visited the location at The Mall at Short Hills—billed as a premier shopping mall with swanky names like Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Jimmy Choo—and reports that you can also find Mercedes Benz- and Maserati-inspired face masks there.
On top of that, customers can purchase lanyards to hold their masks at their necks and plastic attachments to prevent their makeup from getting smudged.
If shoppers can’t find a mask that expresses their individuality, they can even customize their own with patches at US$10 a pop and rhinestones for an additional US$15.
You can find Covid-19 Essentials stores in Las Vegas, New Jersey, New York City, and Philadelphia, with California locations on the way. Whether or not the bells and whistles are “essential” is another story.
[via Business Insider and The New York Times, images via various sources]
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