Designers and entrepreneurs fashion face masks for medical professionals in Houston

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A few local designers have pivoted to create face masks for local health care workers. Photo courtesy of Magpies & Peacocks

The coronavirus is sweeping the globe and creating new challenges. Notably, companies are not able to keep up with the demand for the N95 masks needed to keep the health care workers safe. Now, Houston's fashion industry is stepping up.

Megan Eddings, founder of Accel Lifestyle, says an article she read about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advising health care professionals to wear homemade masks or bandanas due to the shortage of the N95 masks inspired her. She was compelled to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic locally and nationwide.

"Accel's Prema fabric was created to prevent the growth of bacteria," Eddings tells CultureMap. "The fabric can be washed up to 100 times and it will still be 99.99-percent anti-bacteria."

Eddings says it dawned on her that she has over 500 shirts made, here in Houston, that could easily be recreated into masks. Her supply chain team consists of 20 sewers and she notes that number can quickly double.

"We have enough supplies here to make 9,000 masks and I have 2,800 yards of fabric sitting at my factory in California," she says. "That's enough fabric to make more than 100,000 masks."

Eddings and her team also tell CultureMap that 47,000 yards of elastic is en route to the Bayou City this week.

"I knew this was serious when the president of MD Anderson responded to my Saturday morning email within three minutes of sending," she says. "He's interested, and they want the infection control team to analyze the fabric."

Other local hospitals interested in Accel Lifestyle's masks are Methodist, Texas Children's, Baylor, and Memorial Hermann. The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City has also shown interest as well as Yale's New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut.

Accel's masks are made out of their specialty anti-bacteria fabric. Photo courtesy of Accel

When Chloe Dao made the decision to temporarily close her Rice Village boutique last Tuesday, offering shopping requests by appointment only, she posted a video to her Instagram account the following day about the emotional roller coaster she's been on surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak.

In the video, Dao says she wanted to play a role in helping her community by creating a pattern and hand sewing 100 washable face masks with pockets. She noted in the caption that the pocket allows for extra filtration but that because it's a fabric mask, it does not stop the spread of the virus. Dao also recommends washing the mask before wearing it.

With production underway since her initial 100 masks, available in small/medium and medium/large, Dao and her team have produced close to 1,000 masks for Houstonians who reached out via social media.

"The requests are overwhelming," a representative for the label tells CultureMap. "We're now shifting our focus to help those on the front line of the coronavirus outbreak; the doctors, nurses, family members of doctors and nurses."

For those who would like to donate to Dao's efforts to continue producing these washable masks, click here.

Houston-based, internationally recognized nonprofit design house, Magpies & Peacocks, and Inclán Studio, a local women's ready-to-wear fashion label, are upcycling together to create nonwoven polypropylene masks, which will be distributed to Houston-area hospitals.

Founder and CEO, Sarah-Jayne Smith and vice president and director of communications/PR, Ahshia Berry, tells CultureMap that partnering together was never a question for either of our brands but more "how can we pull our resources together and help during these trying times."

Clarence Lee, a designer at Inclán Studio, tells CultureMap he searched the studio to find elastic cording that didn't get used in past collections.

"Waste as a resource and upcycling material for good use has never been more important than it is right now," Magpies & Peacocks writes on an Instagram post.

Houston Arts Alliance and Visit Houston donated excess promotional products and now, are deconstructed to reuse the material for these masks.

"It's actually a spun plastic, not a fabric, so it works effectively as a filter, and is more moisture resistant," Magpies & Peacocks tells CultureMap. "It's more compliant and efficient for the current exposure to the service industry in the midst of the crisis."

Lee, who is also a lead designer for Magpies & Peacocks, and serves as an executive board member for the nation's exclusive nonprofit design house, tells CultureMap that for them, it simply boils down to help in any capacity, especially after seeing what's happening across the country with the shortage of supplies.

He notes that they may not have all the supplies, but they do have the capability and time to sew to help those that are on the frontline, fighting and sacrificing everything they have.

"[Houston] is our home, and we all have a part to play in helping fight this," he says. "The [fashion] industry has a major role, and now is definitely the time to show how valuable it can be."

Magpies & Peacocks and Inclán Studio aim to produce 500-600 masks, and hopefully more, should they come across more materials, Lee tells CultureMap. Seven volunteers are helping to sew these nonwoven polypropylene masks.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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European spacecraft developer expands to Houston with U.S. business, new lab

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European aerospace manufacturer The Exploration Company has established its first U.S. entity and named Space City as its headquarters.

The company announced earlier this month that it has launched TEC Federal to support U.S. government customers and agencies, and to scale The Exploration Company's engineering operations in the country.

Mark Kirasich serves as president of TEC Federal. Kirasich most recently served as the senior director of human spaceflight at Blue Origin after a nearly 40-year career at NASA.

The Exploration Company is developing the reusable Nyx space vehicle. Nyx is designed to take off from any heavy launcher in the world. It will then dock at space stations, retrieve up to 3,000 kilograms of cargo, splash down and return the cargo to Earth. The company aims to make Nyx fully reusable for up to 10 missions, making it a more affordable and sustainable option for aerospace missions.

The Exploration Company completed a successful drop test of the spacecraft in May in the Mojave Desert. The company says Nyx is slated to perform its first flight demonstration in 2028.

In addition to launching the Houston business, The Exploration Company also opened its new Rapid Innovation Lab near Houston's NASA Johnson Space Center on Space Park Drive.

The Exploration Company opened its Rapid Innovation Lab earlier this month. Photo via LinkedIn

The Rapid Innovation Lab features a full-scale mockup of the future Nyx crew capsule as well as ongoing development and testing of the Nyx cargo capsule, according to the company.

The Exploration Company says the new lab will allow its engineers, designers, and operators to prototype and test crew interfaces. It will also support partnerships with NASA personnel and astronauts.

“Houston gives us direct access to the people and expertise that have built and operated human spaceflight systems for decades. We’re excited to invest and expand around that— engineers, operators, and astronauts working together and moving quickly towards building a crew capsule.” Hélène Huby, founder and CEO of The Exploration Company, said in a blog post.

According to The Houston Chronicle, The Exploration Company has about 30 employees in the Houston area.

The company was founded in 2021 by Huby, a French rocket scientist, and has raised more than $350 million in venture capital. It operates out of Germany, France, Luxembourg, Spain and Italy, with offices in the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates. It is also developing a reusable, high-thrust rocket engine known as Storm.

Exciting XSpace expansion plans + more top Houston innovation headlines

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Editor's note: The top Houston innovation headlines for the first half of July include XSpace's expansion and KBR's C-suite hires. Here is a recap of the five most-read InnovationMap stories published July 1-15, 2026:

1. XSpace plans $250M industrial condo expansion with RAFA Racing Club

nullXSpace plans $250M industrial condo expansion with RAFA Racing Club

Houston-based XSpace Group has teamed up with two other Houston companies, RAFA Racing Club and Maximo Capital, to develop five industrial condo projects that pair flex space and high-end car storage space with a members-only clubhouse for motorsports enthusiasts. The five projects will be built in the Dallas-Fort Worth; Miami-Boca Raton; Charlotte-Mooresville, North Carolina; Phoenix-Scottsdale; and Los Angeles markets. Continue reading.

2. KBR names C-suite duo to lead $5.3B government services spinoff

In advance of the spinoff of its Mission Technology Solutions unit, Houston-based KBR has made two C-suite hires for the new business. Michael LaRouche is coming aboard as president and CEO of the spinoff, currently called SpinCo, on Sept. 26. Nicholas Veasey joined as executive vice president and chief financial officer on July 1. Continue reading.

3. Experts: Houston's VC ecosystem has set the foundation — now we need scale

Fervo Energy went public earlier this summer. The Houston geothermal company priced its IPO at $27 per share, raised $1.89 billion, and opened the next morning at a market capitalization north of $10 billion. By most measures, it is the largest venture-backed cleantech IPO in history and an unambiguous win for Houston. It’s also a useful moment to look at where Houston's venture ecosystem stands and where it can go. The highlight: Houston's venture ecosystem has real foundations and, with increased company formation activity, can grow into the scale our city's ambitions deserve. Continue reading.

4. $12M pharmaceutical manufacturing facility to be built in Sugar Land

A nearly $12 million drug manufacturing facility is coming to Sugar Land. City leaders in Sugar Land recently approved a $1.3 million performance-based incentive for DeliverIt Group, a Sugar Land-based provider of specialty pharmacy, infusion therapy and clinical care services, for the development of the 60,000-square-foot facility. Continue reading.

5. Walmart expands drone delivery service to 8 new Houston-area stores

More Walmart delivery drones are now buzzing around Houston-area skies. In January, Walmart launched its drone delivery service in partnership with Wing at five locations in the Houston area. The retail giant just added eight more stores to its Houston-area drone delivery network. Wing says the expansion makes drone delivery available to more than 1 million residents of the Houston area. Continue reading.

UH lands $4M NIH grant to study early signs of autoimmune disease

NIH funding

The University of Houston recently received a $4 million National Institutes of Health grant to support a 10-year longitudinal study to identify the earliest biological markers of autoimmune disease.

Led by Chandra Mohan, the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Endowed Professor of Biomedical Engineering, the study aims to examine what causes Systemic Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases (SARDs) and to identify targets for future treatments. The study will be carried out in collaboration with Dr. Karen Costenbader at Harvard Medical School, Boston.

SARDs include conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjögren’s syndrome and systemic sclerosis—all are considered chronic diseases currently without a cure. Autoimmune diseases affect over 30 million people globally, according to UH.

SARDs occur when the body’s immune system attacks healthy, non-threatening tissues and organs. According to UH, in these diseases, the body often attacks nuclear antigens, creating anti-nuclear autoantibodies, which can be early detection signs for SARDs in more than 50 percent of patients, Mohan says.

Researchers will study blood samples and environmental exposure over the 10 years to better understand anti-nuclear autoantibodies.

“Collectively, these studies will help identify the genetic, environmental and cellular factors that are operative at the two steps of SARD development, namely the emergence of anti-nuclear autoantibodies and disease onset,” Mohan said in a news release. “ More importantly, these studies will highlight functional molecular pathways and mechanisms that may be operative at each step."

Mohan predicts that looking at SARDs’ shared characteristics, rather than each disease individually, could help identify more treatment methods.

“Individual SARDs have been examined in silos without an attempt to discern shared underlying features at the molecular level,” he added in the release. “Current understanding of the initial (and likely shared) origins of SARDs is only rudimentary but urgently needed to develop means for prevention and treatment.”

Earlier this year, UH also received an $11 million NIH grant to conduct a first-of-its-kind study of early language development in children ages 18 to 24 months. Read more here.

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