MAY/JUNE 2018 15 “When we follow the care label and something gets ruined, we believe that it’s the responsibility of the manufacturer to step up,” Hallak said. “But when we go to the manufacturer, it tarnishes our reputation. We try to correct whatever we can.” His plant recently handled a $4,000 dress that had glued- on paillettes that were stripped in cleaning. “They shouldn’t have cleaned it,” Hallak said. “We were lucky enough to go downtown and find close to the same thing— an iron-on paillette. It took a couple of hours, but we put them all back on, and it looked gorgeous.” Some garments can’t be saved, he notes, like a red, black, and white sweater that had its black dyes bleed into the reds during extraction. “When something like that happens, there’s nothing you can do about it except go on eBay and find another one just like it. “Extraction is the cleaner’s worst enemy,” Hallak added. “When you extract a garment, it adds centrifugal force and pulls the dyes through the garment. That’s where you get dye transfer. If you have multicolored things with trim, whether drycleaned or wetcleaned, you have to do minimal extraction.” “Sometimes on the black-and-whites, you have to take the garment apart, clean the white part separately, restore it, and sew it back together,” Suber said. “Sometimes you can reclean it, and [the dye bleeds] will flush out. But the proper approach is to try to restore it and let the customer know. Similarly, when a garment is beyond repair, cleaners can’t avoid the issue or send a ruined garment home in the hope that the customer won’t notice. Instead, they need to alert the customer immediately, and have a plan ready to make things right. “I had a woman’s wool topcoat that had belt loops coated with vinyl polyurethane, and the belt loops peeled in cleaning,” Suber said. “We went to the customer and found an alternative to fix it—we made wool belt loops. Now it won’t happen again.” “If we have a problem, we tell the customer immediately,” Hallak said. “The consumer’s job is to purchase, and we want them to purchase whatever they’re going to purchase. If we know what we’re doing, the more expensive the garment, the more we get to charge to clean it.” Ian P. Murphy is a freelance writer and editor based in Chicago. He served as the editor of American Drycleaner magazine from 1999-2011. You’re supposed to be the professional, so test even if the label says ‘Dryclean only.’ -DavidSuber, ownerofPerfectCleanersinLosAngeles COVER FOCUS An adhesive was used instead of thread to hold seams together on this blouse. The construction method did not hold pieces together through typical professional care procedures.