A profitable challenge
Bridal dresses
1 June 2008A wedding dress service can be profitable but it uses all a drycleaner’s skills – from fibre identification through stain pre-treatment to final pressing. In most cases, washing will be better than drycleaning if the dress is heavily stained or soiled with food or drink. However, the wash will require even more skill than drycleaning to avoid colour change, shrinkage and fabric damage.Helping the customer with long-term storage by providing proper acid-free packaging will preserve a valued and valuable heirloom. But if you undertake to clean a wedding dress and it has not been correctly stored, even more care will be needed to produce the result the customer expects.Many garment ranges are poorly constructed and poorly labelled, and the consequences of this for the owner of a wedding dress can be catastrophic. If the drycleaning solvent softens the plastic beads or if the mechanical action in cleaning frays the fabrics used, then the customer’s reaction can be very emotional.
Old stains bring problems
Fault: After the stains were pre-treated and the garment drycleaned, the treated stains had darkened, more marks had appeared and the underarm fabric was disintegrating.
Cause: Old stains are much more difficult to soften with pre-treatment, and few old marks will come out completely.
Stains containing sugar (such as drink stains) or protein (ice-cream marks) may dry without leaving a mark. Neither type will be completely removed in drycleaning and the residues will darken during tumble drying.
If perspiration marks are left for some time before cleaning, they will become acidic or alkaline and if the yarns contain either silk or cotton they will rot steadily. The mechanical action of drycleaning will cause the fabric to start to disintegrate.
Responsibility: The user is responsible for the residual marks and also for the fabric damage because both faults stem from staining in use and the delay in getting the garment cleaned.
However, the cleaner should have checked the date of the wedding and given a realistic assessment of the result before going ahead.
Rectification: It might be possible to improve the old staining using a a good proprietary post-spotting kit, but this will need considerable time and skill. Protein components should be softened first and then flushed off, before the tannin stains are tackled.
The fabric damage cannot be improved and may get worse if the garment needs re-cleaning after the stains have been treated again.
Poor pressing spoils the result
Fault: The dress was drycleaned successfully, but the cleaner was uncertain how to finish the layered ruching on the bodice. Gentle ironing led to creases in the wrong place.
Cause: The ruching should be ironed flat using a narrow iron, taking care not to set any creases at all. Once the fabric is crease-free, the ruched folds should be laid up by hand, working either on a steam-air former or over a bed of air above a professional finishing table. Once the ruched folds are positioned correctly, they can be very lightly set with a puff of steam or brief vacuum. The secret is to use as little of either as possible.
Responsibility: Skills at Guild Advanced Level Garment Finishing are required for this kind of finishing. If these are not available, it is better to turn away or subcontract a ruched garment because there is no real alternative and a justifiable claim is highly likely.
Rectification: Provided the incorrect creases have not been heavily set in, then re-cleaning and correct re-finishing as described here is usually possible.
Trims fail the cleaning test
Fault: After cleaning three wedding dresses, the cleaner was faced with widespread loss of glued-on jewels from one, softened plastic beads on the second and a frayed lace trim on the third.
Cause: In each case the dress trims had not been designed to withstand the drycleaning process indicated on the label. All three had been optimistically labelled with P in a circle.
Responsibility: The garment maker is responsible for ensuring that all parts of a garment can withstand the cleaning method recommended. Neither owner nor cleaner should share the blame.
Rectification: Trim damage cannot usually be rectified.
However, it may be possible to remove the frayed lace to leave a wearable garment.
