Irish solo dance dress

To find something as special as Maggie Ramsey’s “solo dress”, you’d have to fly to Europe.

Only Irish dancers who have won first prize in certain levels of dance competition are privileged to wear one like it, we learned.  

The challenge of cleaning this three-year old red Irish dance dress, made by Elevation Design, had to do with its elaborate ornamentation.  The garment is decorated with everything from metal flakes to sequins (four different kinds), and has an under layer made of red and silver snakeskin. 

The Ramsey dress seemed to combine a number of the toughest challenges dry cleaning technicians face:

• Red dyes tend to be less stable, with red garments likely to lose vibrancy faster than other colors.
• Sequins often melt with heat, so even steam-cleaning posed risks.
• There is no one method that is safe for all the different types of fabric used in that one dress – a normal dry cleaning label from the International Association for Textile Care Labeling couldn’t begin to cover all the different parts of Maggie’s solo dress.

But, by carefully combining different tools and techniques developed over decades of specialized dry cleaning

Maggie Ramsey at the 2010 Indianapolis Feis Irish Dance Competition

experience in Indiana, including compressed air, specialized brushes, steam guns, new combinations of stain-fighting solutions and more, Classic Cleaners professionals were able to create the beautiful result pictured here.

Maggie’s mom gave us permission to share her e-mail note:

I can’t thank you enough for the excellent care you took in cleaning my daughter’s Irish Dance Solo Dress. It is beautiful!  I have sent a message to all the other Irish Dance families at our academy about our wonderful experience and great the dress turned out.  If they are thinking of purchasing a used solo dress that needs cleaning or have never had their solo dress steam cleaned, they should really contact you at the Bash location Classic Cleaners.  We were very pleased with our experience.

My daughter’s name is Maggie Ramsey and she is with the Richens/Timan Academy of Indiana located at Washington Square Mall….Thank you so much.

Cathi Ramsey

With a testimonial like that, it feels as if Classic Cleaners has won the prize!

 by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

August is almost here, and with it comes Classic Cleaners’ August Dress For Success Indianapolis fundraiser.

 Now Classic Cleaners customers have the chance to do right by their clothes while doing right by women in our community who need a little support to help them “thrive in work and in life”.

The August fundraiser is very special, and this is Classic Cleaners’ eighth year as a very special sponsor.  Here’s how the promotion works:

FOR EVERY DRY CLEANING ORDER OF $20 OR MORE,

CLASSIC  CLEANERS DONATES $2.00 TO DRESS FOR SUCCESS INDIANAPOLIS!

A check is presented by Classic Cleaners to the DFS organization at DFS Indianapolis’ annual September fundraiser event, “Stepping Out in Style”.  In each of the past two years, Classic Cleaners’ September donation was more than $13,000!  (Won’t you help us top that this year?)

By the way, the annual August DFS promotion is just one aspect of the ongoing partnership between Classic Cleaners and Dress For Success Indianapolis.  Back in April, Classic Cleaners hosted “Super Sort” at the Bash Street plant, with DFS Indianapolis staff members, volunteers and interns gathering to help sort donated clothing and prepare it for delivery to the Dress For Success Boutique at 820 North Meridian.

August is the perfect time to organize your closets and drawers in preparation for back-to-school — or perhaps for off-to-college!  Whatever the coming fall months hold for you and your family,  your favorite outfits can be clean, pressed, and ready to make just the right impression.  Isn’t it nice to know you’ll be helping Dress For Success Indianapolis in their mission “to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support, and career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life”?

Make a special point to take advantage of the Classic Cleaners August special!  

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Put metal edges next to clothing and what do you get? Snags.

At Classic Cleaners, we see snags of every sort.  Sometimes, a wood splinter or a broken fingernail is the culprit, but more typically, garment snags are the result of metal things that go “pinch” or “pull”.

When the prongs on jewelry are loose, not only can precious stones be lost, those loose prongs can be very bad news for clothes.  Quick! Take your ring to your jeweler, while your dry cleaning professionals make the needed repairs to your garment.

Ladies, even your not-so-precious costume jewelry, especially if it hangs below the neckline, can snag your clothing.  Earrings that dangle can cause amazing damage as clothing is pulled over the head. Gentlemen’s and ladies’ belts can include metal edging or clasps that go “pinch” and “snag”.

The jury is still out on cell phone use being bad for human health. For sure, though, cell phones can be bad for clothing: the clips on belt cell phone holders often cause snags in the waistbands of skirts and trousers. Pin-on – and clip-on – name badges at business meetings? Those can snag woven fabrics of tops and sweaters.

Metal hoops in Civil War-era dresses

Repairing fabric tears is just one of the services Classic Cleaners provides, along with patching jacket elbows, replacing buttons, fasteners, and zippers, and hemming dresses, skirts, and pants.  With our decades of combined experience, you can bet those fasteners and zippers no longer go “pinch” in the night – or in the day, for that matter! 

 by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

January 23, 1995 : Love, Honor, Cherish, reads the inscription embroidered on the blanket given to Rick and Regina Mattson to mark the occasion of their wedding fifteen and a half years ago.  But, while Rick and Regina continued to love, honor, and cherish each other, time had been less than kind to their blanket, as Regina discovered to her horror a few weeks ago.

Regina's wedding blanket before restoration

A gift from Rick’s parents, the blanket had been displayed in an honored spot in the entryway to the Mattson home, with a stuffed toy holding it in place. But, over the years, the white blanket had gradually yellowed, and streaks of gray had collected on the hem.

Regina's blanket after Classic Cleaners' restoration

Regina, manager of Classic CleanersStore #12 at 11202 Fall Creel Boulevard, rushed to have the blanket dry cleaned, only to learn that the yellowing had persisted.  Leon Neal came to the rescue, using heirloom restoration techniques to return the blanket to its former glory.

Formerly employed by a construction company, Regina Mattson came to work at Classic Cleaners last November.  She reports she “absolutely loves” her great customers and all the support she receives from management, in particular from district manager Dee Godwin.

Now, with her wedding blanket restored, Regina is glad to provide her very own “testimonial” to the talents of Classic Cleaners’ professionals!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

In the famous Edgar Allen Poe short story, The Telltale Heart, the murderer was convinced he’d covered his tracks.  “There was nothing to wash out – no stain of any kind,” he’d told himself.

Have you ever spilled something and had the stain disappear, leaving no sign of champagne, soda, or food? 

Telltale Stains Too Late To Fix

Weeks or even months or years later, a yellow or brown stain magically appears at the very spot of the original spill. How did that happen?

At Classic Cleaners, we see many such unwelcome “encore appearances” of stains.  Clear alcoholic beverages often don’t appear to have done any damage at the time they’re spilled on a dress, jacket, or trousers.  But, stealthy as ”telltale hearts”, back come the telltale signs of  past spills of tea, coffee, soda, or champagne, white wine, or fruit juice.

Speaking of fruit, you’ve seen a peeled apple turn brown. No real mystery,  just science – the brownish color is a result of the sugar in the fruit oxidizing or “carmelizing” when it’s exposed to air.

The problem with carmelizing on clothes, though, is that time and heat help set in those reappeared stains, and the more time that passes, and the more heat there is, the harder it becomes to ever get those stains out of the fabric.

Spills happen on the happiest of occasions.  But for there to be a happy ending to your Telltale Stain story, remember these three rules:

• Blot – don’t rub! – the stain when the spill happens.
• Even if you see no signs of the spill on your garment, as soon as possible, bring it in for dry cleaning!
• Tell all!  Make sure your dry cleaning professionals know exactly what happened.  That way, the stain can be pre-treated before the garment is exposed to any heat in the dry cleaning process.

The murderer thought he’d gotten away with the crime, but the Telltale Heart “reappeared”, revealing the terrible truth.

That’s why Classic Cleaners’ word to the wise is:

If YOU don’t tell the truth about your stains, your stains will tell the story for you.  And, by then, it might be too late to restore your special garment!

The colors of your clothes and even of your sheets and bath towels can impact how you feel, image consultant Julie Carson says.  “Using a red towel in the morning can give you energy,” she adds, “but wearing red all day can make you excitable.”

At Classic Cleaners we know all about reds being “excitable”.  From a dry cleaning and laundry standpoint, red dyes tend to be less stable, with the color likely to lose vibrancy faster than other colors.  Professional dry cleaners refer to certain textile dyes as “loose”, and red, according to Wikipedia is “the main culprit”. Since we know red clothing has a tendency to “bleed” onto other fabrics, our professional technicians are very careful how those reds are handled. Not only are all red garments cleaned and handled separately from other clothes, the solvent itself is distilled after each use.

It’s no wonder we process a lot of red clothing at each of our Classic Cleaners locations – red continues to be a very popular color, not only for women’s clothing, but for men’s ties and sweaters as well. Famous designer Bill Blass advised, “When in doubt, wear red.” Renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright placed a red square signature tile on each of the homes he built in the 1930’s. The message you send by driving a vehicle that is Vibrant Red, according to http://www.squidoo.com/: Speedy, high energy, dynamic. Have you ever wondered why U.S. presidents seem to prefer red ties? Neatorama cites studies showing that red is most effective at enhancing our attention to detail.

No matter what the color of your clothing, be assured each garment will be given the specialized attention it requires. As longtime members of the Dry Cleaning & Laundry Institute, the premier international association for garment care professionals, we’re proud to “see red” (along with any other color garment you entrust to our care!).

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team