Coronavirus: Downton Abbey and His Dark Materials costume designers to make NHS hospital scrubs

The ‘Helping Dress Medics’ fundraising page has received more than £10,000 in donations

Sabrina Barr
Tuesday 31 March 2020 11:26 BST
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His Dark Materials
His Dark Materials

A group of costume designers from some of the most popular British dramas on television has come together to make hospital scrubs for NHS staff working throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

The assortment of costume designers was initially made up of sewists and designers who worked on the BBC programme His Dark Materials, the first season of which aired at the end of last year.

The group took the acronym HDM, which denotes the fantasy television show, naming their initiative “Helping Dress Medics”.

They have launched a fundraising page on GoFundMe with the aim of raising funds to make hospital scrubs and to supply hospitals that are local to the designers.

The team fundraiser has so far raised more than £10,700, surpassing its target of £10,000.

Several of the costume designers who have united to make hospital scrubs are based in Cardiff, where His Dark Materials was filmed.

They have also been joined by a costume designer who worked on the Tom Hardy-led television series Taboo, in addition to a creative who worked on Batman.

Furthermore, a costume designer who worked on Downton Abbey is also making hospital scrubs from their home in London.

Dulcie Scott, who worked as a costume supervisor on His Dark Materials, launched the project on Saturday 28 March.

Ms Scott said that their fundraiser “has gone way beyond any of our expectations — both in donations and also in offers of help”.

“Many more costume makers have joined us and we have been able to order lots more fabric and make many more scrubs and reach other parts of the country,” she said, having received a second order of 365m of fabric on Monday 30 March.

“Any donation you could make would help directly with materials — all our labour is being given for free.”

Ms Scott added that if there is any money left over, they will be donating it to “one of the companies who have re-purposed their 3D printing facilities to now make protective face shields for the NHS”.

While several of her colleagues from His Dark Materials are situated in Cardiff, Ms Scott is based in north Cotswolds while another designer from her team, named Cathy, lives in Plymouth.

“Cathy and I are both also organising for local help with our sewing,” Ms Scott said. “Similar schemes are now running very successfully in London and springing up elsewhere.

“Our aim is to keep it local and to supply the hospitals closest by. This should make things quicker, keep costs down and ideally keep any risk of contagion to a minimum.”

Ms Scott explained that they are liaising with hospital staff in their local areas and “taking advice from them about what they need, so that we can specifically help them”.

“The nature of how the virus is spread means that the demand for scrubs is especially high,” she stated.

“Using our professional contacts, we are buying materials at the most reasonable prices possible, but it is still quite a considerable outlay.”

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