Trim surface shrinks
1 February 2002
Problem: When a blouson jacket with a good imitation leather collar was cleaned the synthetic leather surface delaminated and shrank, resulting in rounded bear patches along the collar fold.
Cause: The coating used here had not been designed to withstand the tightening effect which immersion in perc fluid frequently brings. So when the surface tightened the bonding gave way and these rounded holes appeared in all the high wear/high stress areas.
Responsibility: The garment maker should take the blame.
If this garment had been put through a proper set of drycleanability tests (at least three with intervening periods of normal wear) then this problem could have been predicted.