Coronavirus: Protective costumes from Chernobyl donated to help healthcare workers

Protective gear from The Crown, The Young Pope and Vikings have also been sent to key workers

The costume design department of Chernobyl and other TV drams have donated the protective costumes that were used on their shows to healthcare workers who are fighting coronavirus.

Their efforts come as doctors, nurses and cleaning staff in several countries have been reporting shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) that is an essential part of staying safe.

Peris Costumes, a Madrid-based company that has worked on several blockbuster shows, including The Crown, The Young Pope and Vikings, has donated thousands of euros worth of protective gear to key workers across Europe.

“We decided first to check what we had in our warehouses, which have a lot of things which are useful coming from different series and productions,” Peris Costumes CEO, Javier Toledo, told Euronews.

“Once we found all that we could donate for protection, we decided to use our workshops to produce masks, aprons and other clothes that could help healthcare workers.”

The most useful protective equipment came from his company’s work on Chernobyl since many of the costumes were designed for whole-body protection.

“For this production, we bought a lot of plastic protections. Real costumes for protection and [we’re] lucky we had this so we could help. We donated everything.

“Not only that, but also face covers and everything we could find in our stocks – shoes, and even materials used in real life by doctors and nurses,” Toledo continued.

Elsewhere, the costume designer for Stockholm’s main theatre has switched from making costumes for the stage to making medical aprons.

“It’s very difficult to change, we’ve had to put down all the work that we’ve had to do, and I’ve had to learn a lot about the healthcare system and what they need, and we have to be aware that this is only a small portion of what is needed,” said Nancy Andreasson Peters, head of makeup and costume at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern.

”We have also made disposable aprons and we have some transparent plastic, which is really clean,” she added. “We used an apron from the retirement home and we just cut the same model... We made about 10,000.”