NEW! - IN THE BAG
Safe transport for your funky facemask
Keeping your mask sterile between wearings is important! Funky Facemask's drawstring bags have a colourful cotton outer layer, a virus-proof core layer of non-woven Oekotex, and a soft inner layer of Indian butter muslin to make you and your mask feel good. Hot wash, cool iron. Visit our shop for details.
JUST IN! - NEW SUMMER FABRICS AND LIGHTWEIGHT OEKOTEX FILTERS!
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Check out our gorgeous new summer fabrics and ask for our Oekotex filters - light and breathable, allergy-neutral, tested for harmful substances, mite-proof, and odourless. You can request Oekotex filters with any of our existing designs for a summer-weight mask.
Oekotex won't keep your schnoz warm when you're on your bike on a chilly morning, but it's easy to breathe through when you're rushing around the supermarket in a panic.
Get yours now in our shop.
FUNKY FACEMASKS BERLIN
Cotton and Bamboo Facemasks with Flair
Welcome to Funky Facemasks Berlin!
**BECAUSE OF THE HIGH VOLUME OF CURRENT DEMAND, PLEASE ALLOW AN EXTRA WEEK FOR YOUR ORDER TO BE PROCESSED BEFORE SHIPPING.**
What do music people do during a global pandemic? The members of this Moabit share house in Berlin are usually involved in various aspects of opera. When Shirley isn't reviewing operas or writing about music, she runs www.umculo.org, making music theatre with and for young people in the townships of South Africa, where she was born.
But now is not the time for travel and large gatherings. Now is the time to curb the spread of Covid19 through social distancing and other precautions. So Shirley has created Funky Facemasks Berlin, unique hand-crafted cotton and bamboo masks for her friends, their friends, and you.
Funky Facemasks are made with two layers of 100% cotton, plus an inner core of organic bamboo that is anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-microbial, and won't stink, or Oekotex, a lighter summer alternative, with a built-in wire that forms to the shape of your nose for a snugger fit. You can choose your own unique design for your mask, or select from a wide variety of funky fabrics. By buying a funky facemask, you help feed hungry members of some of South Africa's most disadvantaged communities.
FOR A FULL SELECTION OF PRODUCTS, CLICK ON THE "SHOP" LINK DIRECTLY BELOW THIS PARAGRAPH!
OUR SISTER PROJECT - WHERE RAINBOWS MEET
Feeding the Communities of the Cape Flats in South Africa
RAINBOWS MEET MASK PROJECT
Making Masks on the Cape Flats
Women from Where Rainbows Meet have organised a group project to make and sell face masks to raise money for the growing number of people who, because of income lost due to lock-down, can no longer afford food. For every Funky Facemasks Berlin sold, we will donate the price of one Rainbows mask to the Where Rainbows Meet feeding scheme.
CAPE FLATS FEEDING SCHEME
Social distancing is a challenge in informal settlements
Right now, Mymoena Scholtz's Where Rainbows Meet team feeds 1400 people a day, but that number is growing as need and hunger grows in their community. Many of South Africa's disadvantaged communities depend both on jobs in the service industry and on the informal economy. Under lockdown, day-to-day survival is a horrendous struggle.
YOUR DONATION HELPS
Support Where Rainbows Meet; help this community survive the lockdown
By purchasing a Funky Facemask, you can to make a difference. You can also make a donation of any size to Where Rainbows Meet directly at here: http://www.whererainbowsmeet.org, or contact for assistance in how best to send money to South Africa. Your donation will go directly into food for hungry community members.
SHIPPING SPEED
We are not Amazon One Click
Each mask is made to order, and that takes time. To our distress and delight, Funky Facemasks are proving very popular, and that means delays of up to a week before we can finish and send your mask when you order. Each mask contains at least an hour of meticulous handiwork by an artist with a lifetime of professional experience in something other than handiwork. Have patience, please! Our masks are worth the wait.
OUR BACKGROUND
Funky Facemasks Berlin is a combined effort by the inhabitants of our Moabit shared apartment and its extended circle. Belgian Dramaturgin Annik Laurelle takes many of the fabulous photos you see on this web site and cooks up a storm; German pianist and vocal accompanist Markus Zugehör irons cotton and bamboo for the masks and patiently cleans up after the rest of us. Tetjana (Ukrainan) and Juan-Carlos (Colombian) Kushnir Gutierrez Sierra, from one floor below us, were brought together by Hinduism, and are assisting with sewing as our project grows, quizzically observed by their cat Vayu. Down the U9 a few stops, cellist extraordinaire Anna Carewe sews some of our most precise and beautiful masks between rehearsals. We are very proud to have recently welcomed professional seamstress Angela Seraline, just up the U9 in Wedding, to our team; she brings a wealth of experience, from the costume ateliers of the Paris Opera to the world of Haute Couture, to our little operation. French rocket scientist Jean-Pierre Tartary advises on the impact of sound vibrations and structural fatigue on mask design when his jazz guitar schedule permits. Keks, the cat on the right, strictly supervises all operations, whilst Mochi, the cat on the left, monitors household stress levels, and keeps a careful count of the apartment's toy mice. Funky Facemaks are a team effort. We are an international, inter-species, inclusive household.
WHO IS SEWING YOUR MASKS?
Expertise in surprising fields
ANNA CAREWE
Her life is defined by the cello; she has lived in Berlin since 1980; she has done everything from playing in the Berlin Philharmonic to improvising in her duo with Oli Bott, vibraphone.
TATJANA KSHNIR GUTIERREZ SIERRA
Born in the Ukraine, she emigrated to Germany with her parents in the 90s; she loves art and spirituality and is active in Berlin's Hindu community. She has developed her own direction in visual art for healing.
ANGELA TROMMSDORFF-SÉRALINE
from Martinique in the French Caribbean, Angela’s work as the team's professional seamstress has taken her to a dizzying range of stations - from the Opera Gariner et Bastille to haute couture. She has been in Berlin for ten years, where she currently works for the Friedrichstadt Palace.
SHIRLEY APTHORP
Shirley loves making things and bringing people together. She founded as a response to the Covid19 crisis in South Africa, noticing that hunger was the newest and most urgent crisis facing the communities with which her organisation worka. She is a South-African-born, Australian-educated, Irish-passport-holding, often-confused Berlin resident.
CARE INSTRUCTIONS
Funky Facemasks can be washed at 40˚C with normal or disinfectant washing liquid between uses, or sprayed well with alcohol. If you try to wash them at hotter temperatures, the colour may run. Cool iron on setting ** (PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR SUMMER OEKOTEX LINING WILL MELT UNDER A HOT IRON!!). Do not try to iron directly onto the T-shirt transfers; they will get sticky. A garment steamer is fine.
Wash your hands. Stay at home. Practise social distancing. Get enough sleep. Don't listen to anything that Donald Trump says. Eat your vegetables. Obey your cats. This, too, shall pass.
YOUR ORDER COMPLETION AND SHIPPING
Funky Facemasks are made to order
We are a tiny operation and we make each mask for each customer individually. Your mask cannot be rushed. Once we have received your order, we will devise the best way of making your mask, and let you know as soon as it is on its way to you. A Funky Facemask is worth a little wait, because it's made for you. We're fast, but we're never slapdash, and we don't cut corners.
We use regular post for Germany and airmail for the rest of the world.
If you are not happy with your mask, you can return it for a full refund.
NOW SHIPPING TO AUSTRALIA!! Shipping to South Africa still not possible, alas.
IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE
no, wait - it's rocket science!
Here is a picture of Funky Facemasks' resident rocket scientist Jean-Pierre Tartary doing rocket science in a Funky Rocket Science Facemask in a Bordeaux Rocket Science laboratory. Werner von Braun is sooooo yesterday. Get your facemasks where the science is hottest! And never let them say that it's not rocket science. Because here at funky facemasks, it is.
GET IN TOUCH
Birkenstr. 57, 10559 Berlin, Germany
VAT / Ust.Ident Nr. DE251604369
+491601503878