I have read this quote so many times and very often I simply don’t appreciate how relevant it is. It also implies that something else made way so that there could be renewal. The seed has to die before new growth can take place. 2020 was the year in which some of our old dreams and old routines died. Quite literally, when lockdown commenced, we had a business premises, but no business.
We had machinery that stood around without any purpose.
Our traditional business of 22 years came to a complete stand still. 22 years ago, we started making children’s clothing and then focused primarily on embroidery. It was daunting to get up every morning and somehow do nothing. We didn’t have any garments to embroid or clients to serve. As with so many people in the clothing and related industry we made washable face masks. It was a simple item to manufacture, and the demand was very high, but once we had our production line running like a well-oiled machine, management could sit back and let the production run its course. To be very honest…we were a bit bored.
And then we got the challenge that we didn’t know we needed!
One of our “old clients” phoned us up and asked if we had an essential services certificate and if we were open for business. She is a doctor at one of the hospitals in the area and has often made use of our embroidery service for her scrubs. We only saw clients on appointment, and truth be told, we were watching the clock tick off time waiting for her to enter our offices. It was almost like living in slow motion! We saw her park, watched her get out of her car and…eventually open the door and enter our offices. Our very first (in hindsight) client found us without us looking for her!
We hadn’t seen her in a while and were so happy to see her glowing in her second trimester of pregnancy. There just is something about a pregnant lady that bowls the world over time and time again.
Perhaps it is the glowing skin, perhaps it is the idea of new life in progress. But I digress. Our client was obviously pregnant but had a bit of a problem with maternity wear. Apart from her working long and weird hours, there was very little maternity wear that she could find that was functional for her day-to-day hospital rounds and clothing that could withstand the higher temperature that her clothes were being washed in due to Covid precautions.
She needed maternity scrubs and we were more than up for the challenge. After all, we had a retired hospital matron in our midst that understood “hospital” and enough (rusted) skill and know-how to get this pregnant doctor in maternity scrubs.
Combining patterns and ideas about where what should fit and how to make the garment adjustable so that there will be enough room for mama and baby became a whole new adventure!
Working with the various fabrics, running samples and having fitting sessions were so exhilarating. Some ideas worked wonderfully, and some ideas just sucked! After about a month she was happy with the product and the creative fire in us had been re-ignited! Before we had time to really think about what was happening, we had orders coming in from all over South Africa.
There was this one moment where we were all staring at the clip board with the orders, and we just realized that it was time to start something new and trust the magic of new beginnings. Very few people would start a new business in the midst of an international pandemic, but we just believed that we should trust the timing and the magic that was almost palpable. The Scrub Café was born during the Covid-19 pandemic and the rest, as they say, is history.
Very soon after we developed the maternity scrub set, we launched a unisex scrub top and jogger pants range made from fabric that mooves with the wearer.
You can do anything in these scrubs, from kung foo fighting to saving lives and (almost) anything in between. The journey has been amazing and there is no end in sight! We have come full circle.
We believe that scrubs shouldn’t be boring, and that medicine should also be stylish! We are so excited about where the journey will lead. If Woody and Buzz were in the room on the day that The Scrub Café was born they would have had us all stand at attention with a fisted arm high up in the air shouting in agreement: “To Infinity and Beyond!”