Masks back in demand as Illinois announces statewide mandate in schools. ‘We are going to be selling masks like crazy.’
After picking out notebooks and clothes during a back to school shopping trip to Target on Tuesday, Brenda Perez and her daughters stopped at a display full of face masks.
Perez’s daughters both need masks for school and the call center where she works recently began requiring all employees — even those who are vaccinated, like Perez — to mask up at work.
Retailers scrambled to get face masks on shelves when they became a must-have item overnight during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, then saw sales slump dramatically earlier this year as people got vaccinated and mask mandates lifted. Now some are seeing sales pick back up amid concerns about rising case numbers and new guidance from health officials that has led to mask mandates at some schools and workplaces.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a mask mandate for preschool through high school students and staff statewide Wednesday afternoon. Chicago Public Schools adopted a similar policy late last month after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines including a recommendation that everyone wear masks in schools, regardless of vaccination status. The CDC’s guidelines also advised everyone, including people who are vaccinated, to wear masks indoors in areas of “substantial” or “high” transmission, which includes most of Illinois.
Perez, 38, of the Belmont Cragin neighborhood, has disposable masks but decided to buy more cloth ones now that the family will be wearing them more regularly.
“It seemed like a better investment,” she said.
Even before news of the statewide school mask mandate, Suzie Golub, who runs Lincoln Park kids’ clothing store Frankie’s on the Park, predicted families would be stocking up.
“We are going to be selling masks like crazy,” she said.
Over the summer, lightweight disposable masks in fun patterns have been popular, though the back to school rush hasn’t started yet. Some families may be waiting for schools to finalize rules on masks or for kids to return from summer camp, she said.
“If you’re putting a mask on a little kid, you have to let them pick it out,” she said.
Other retailers say they’re already seeing sales increase.
At Gap, interest in masks began rising again about a month ago but “significantly accelerated over the past week,” the company, which owns the Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta brands, said in an email.
Walgreens also noticed a “slight increase in demand” over the past week, as did Raygun, a Des Moines-based company that sells printed items such as T-shirts, stickers and pint glasses.
Raygun’s Andersonville store went from selling more than 2,000 masks last year to roughly 300 so far this year, not including online sales, the company said.
Around February, as vaccines began rolling out, “we really started to see sales drop off,” said director of operations Blake Crabb. But after the CDC revised its guidance on masks late last month, sales rose about 10%.
Even a small increase in interest would be a sharp turnaround from earlier this summer. PrideMasks, makers of a popular Chicago flag design, were on clearance in May and the company struggled to give them away at Chicago’s Pride in the Park festival Many retailers sharply discounted masks and some are still on sale: Under Armour’s Sportsmask cost $30 a year ago and now sells for $10.
“It just seemed for awhile like nobody wanted them,” said Alan Spaeth, president R&S Marching Arts, which created PrideMasks early in the pandemic when demand for its usual products — marching band uniforms, flags and banners — dried up.
The PrideMasks online store shut down earlier this summer as demand for masks waned and the band business picked up. But when cases began rising, people started asking about masks again, Spaeth said.
The online store reopened Tuesday to sell off the more than 8,000 masks left in stock.
“We really want to be there to get through this last push, but we hope it’s the last push,” Spaeth said.
