12 FABRICARE COVER FOCUS IT’S A FACT IN THE DRYCLEANING BUSINESS: GARMENTS CAN—AND DO—FAIL. Operators can take every precaution to head off potential problems, but once in a while, something will go wrong. In the best case, the drycleaner can fix the damage and return the garment; in the worst, the plant will have to reimburse the loss or replace the item. This is a difficult conversation to have with customers who care about their clothing. They won’t like the fact that a favorite garment is no longer wearable, and having paid the drycleaner to return the item in a clean, refreshed, like- new condition, they blame the cleaner for the problem. “All they know is that they gave the garment to you and it was fine; you gave it back, and it wasn’t fine,” said Brian Johnson, DLI’s Director of Education & Analysis. “‘It can’t be the manufacturer—this is Versace,’ they’ll say. So it has to be you—the drycleaner.” MADE TO FAIL The truth behind most garment failures is more nuanced. Manufacturers are to blame for at least half of all failures, said Joseph Hallak Jr., president of Hallak Couture Cleaners in New York City. “Garment manufacturers manufacture to sell, they don’t manufacture to service,” he said. While the FTC’s Care Label Rule requires the listing of at least one useable cleaning process on the garment label, manufacturers often rely instead on assumptions about garment construction that are proved wrong in processing. “One of the biggest problems is incorrect care instructions,” Johnson said. “The label may say to dryclean, and the manufacturer has used a component or a dye or a trim that is not drycleanable.” “It is not unusual to have garments that just aren’t made correctly,” said Lorraine Muir, instructor at DLI’s School of AVOIDING HORROR STORIES: What To Tell Customers About Problem Garments Before They Fail - And After By Ian P. Murphy continued on page 13