The brand that produces masks for volunteers in Naples The charity project was started by Matteo Paloni and Davide De Vivo, founders of NTMB

Matteo Paloni and Davide de Vivo founded the NTMB brand in 2014, in Naples. The brand's name was an acronym for the phrase Never Too Much Basic – expressive of their intention to revive vintage garments through customizations that give them a new uniqueness. Over the years the couple's brand has been increasingly successful, starting to collaborate with the French collective Faith Connexion and producing handmade denim items seen on Sfera Ebbasta, J Balvin, Quavo and Puff Daddy. But their brand's activity was also interrupted by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. In order to cope jointly in the face of the emergency, the two decided to recruit a network of friends, colleagues and collaborators (Cinzia Caruso of the association Bananimation, Diego Meneghini, Jessica di Paolo, Claudia Imperatore, Giunia Guerrera, Alessia Marcello and Rihab Harrabi) to pack surgical masks to donate to the associations of volunteers in Naples and to the medical staff.

The initiative initiated by Paloni and De Vivo is important because it highlights how it's not only the big brands and the most resource-rich manufacturers that can help the huge number of health workers, doctors and volunteers who are at the forefront of fighting this emergency, but also and above all the local realities, which in Italy are many and talented, and are also the closest to the inhabitants and the problems of each specific territory. Similar benefit projects initiated by fashion designers have also been seen in America in recent days, such as Nicole Miller, Christian Siriano and Michael Costello, who are using their own independent studios to produce masks and protective suits that also in the United States will soon run out.