DILLON — Colored, patterned and logoed masks have sprung up throughout shops in Summit County as facial coverings become part of everyday life. Business owners report their unique masks have become popular store items and have contributed to the bottom line.

Annie Evans, owner of Joy of Sox in Breckenridge, was early to the mask game and added them to her inventory in May. Her store specializes in a huge variety of socks, and the masks are no different. Evans is carrying about 30 brands of masks with various physical features like sparkles or Breckenridge themes as well as practical features like masks that do or don’t wrap around the ears, masks that can hang around the neck when taken off the face and masks with clear material around the lips. One of the more creative masks Evans said she has seen has been a mask that has a velcro strip revealing a hole for a straw.

Overall, masks seem to have fared well for Evans’ business.

“It’s definitely keeping us afloat because everybody needs one, and people are starting to match their outfits,” Evans said. 

At first, Evans said she was ordering tons of masks to keep up with demand, but now demand has started to even out. However, she said people are still buying several masks at a time. As far as mask requirements go, Evans said she is especially grateful for the mandatory mask zone in Breckenridge so that she doesn’t have to police mask requirements herself as a business owner. 

At Wilderness Sports in Dillon, the store gets its masks from Stance, a sock, underwear and T-shirt brand. Owner JT Greene said the store brought in masks in June. He said the first supply of masks the store received sold out in a few days. More masks came in July, and Greene said the store is almost sold out again. He plans to keep restocking.

The store’s staff also wears the soft Stance masks, he said.

“We all wear them because they’re the most comfy masks we’ve been able to find,” Greene said. 

Greene said many people have seen staff members wearing the masks and have come to buy them. The Stance masks are reversible with a solid color on one side and patterns like tie-dye, floral or stripes on the other side.

“It definitely has been profitable,” Greene said. “We sold them really well. They have a nice market on them, so from a business standpoint, they’ve worked out well but also as a help to the community.”

T-shirt shops also have become a popular place to sell masks, and High Attitude Custom T-Shirt Shop owner Isaac Edery said he has used his business to create custom masks. Edery said he has customized masks for local businesses with their logos, including Crepes A La Cart and BoLD Restaurant and Bar. However, Edery said masks haven’t necessarily become a bigger part of his business and haven’t been especially profitable for him. He said he doesn’t charge much because he is trying to help out local businesses.

As far as designs go, Edery has put local prints at the forefront.

“We’ve been putting lips on them, we’ve been putting Breckenridge designs on them, we’ve been putting Colorado logos — a little bit of everything — some Trump designs,” Edery said.