Back in the day, our great-great-grandparents knew Milk of Magnesia was a good remedy to “buffer” stomach acid.

  But, along with preventing acid indigestion in our own bodies, did you know that books and clothes need to be protected as well?

When Classic Cleaners professionals are preserving an heirloom or a wedding gown, for instance, they use layers of acid-free paper to stuff the garment, and then pack the item it into a box made of acid-free material.

"Buffering" clothes with acid-free paper

(The definition of acid-free paper is paper with a neutral PH of around 7.) 

Up until the middle 1800’s, paper was made from various plants, including mulberry and flax.  Then it was discovered that paper could be made more cheaply from wood pulp. It took chemicals to break the wood down into pulp, however, and that process left a residue of acid. The problem was that the acid would turn the pulp yellow and cause it to deteriorate over time.  In fact, many valuable books in libraries became illegible over time, all due to the effects of acid in the paper on which they had been printed!

Today, much of the commercially produced paper is acid free because, during the processing of the wood, “buffers” are added to neutralize the acid in the pulp (kind of like putting “Tums” or Milk of Magnesia in the mix).

Layered with acid free material and loaded into the acid free archival quality preservation box, your gown or heirloom can “breathe”.  Good thing, too, because at Classic Cleaners, we work hard to preserve our reputation as the best wedding gown preservation service from Indianapolis to Noblesville and everywhere in between.

Acid indigestion for clothes?  No way!  After all, as a Classic Cleaners customer, you’ve got a “buffer” in the dry cleaning business!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Heirloom toy dinosaur

Dinosaurs haven’t roamed the earth for 65 million years – except for one very special one, that is, who showed up at Classic Cleaners last month. According to the Guardian, most dinosaurs did well to survive thirty years; our Classic Cleaners’ find was fifty years old!

So what’s the story? The dinosaur is a stuffed animal given to our customer fifty years ago as a birthday present from her brother.  Now, she would like to give it to her grandson, so she asked the professionals at Classic Cleaners for help cleaning and repairing the creature. As you can see, our dino friend survived handsomely!

To preserve treasured heirlooms of any kind and of any age, we use the same advanced technology and techniques we employ for wedding gown restoration, carefully cleaning, treating, and repairing each item to bring it back to life. Dino is not only prepared for immediate enjoyment by our client’s grandson, who knows? He may bring joy for generations to come!

In a different restoration assignment, a Classic Cleaners’ customer brought in a once-beautiful pair of cloth-trimmed shoes.  Because the shoes had been stored for fifteen years in plastic, the leather on the shoes had turned the lace overlay yellow.  While we normally don’t recommend preservation for shoes, this pair, we were informed, held great sentimental value. With expert and painstaking hand treatment, our Classic Cleaners technicians were able to bring the shoes back to their former beauty.

Before

Shoes after restoration

At Classic Cleaners, we try to bring beauty back to the eye of every beholder!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

At Classic Cleaners, we know it really does take a “village”.  Delivering premium dry cleaning and laundry services to all our customers in Westfield, Carmel, and Fishers, Indiana – well, that truly requires specialized skill on the part of many different employees.

Ohi Suhri

One very special Classic Cleaners team member is Gobsuk “Ohi” Suhre, who marks her eighteenth year as CC’s Manager of Alterations. Under Ohi’s expert leadership, we’ve been able to offer complete alteration services. Most dry cleaners provide limited services such as repairing fabric tears, replacing buttons, fasteners, and zippers, and patching the elbows on jackets.  We do all of that and also hem dresses, skirts, and pants.  But, at Classic Cleaners, when we say “complete” alteration services, we mean just that.  We let out. We take in.  We can re-tailor even pants, leather jackets, tuxedos, and quilts. We restore and preserve heirlooms and wedding dresses.

Ohi Suhre manages all these services and more. Originally hired for the front reception counter, Ohi soon demonstrated that her experience and expertise in sewing and tailoring could be of extraordinary value to Classic Cleaners’ customers. 

Born in Bangkok, Thailand, Ohi met her husband Jeffrey Dean Suhre in Athens, Greece. The couple were married in Japan. Years later, with Jeff retired from the U.S. Army and serving as an Army Reservist, the Suhres settled here in Jeff’s hometown of Indianapolis, where Jeff now runs a trucking business.(Ohi’s stepson serves in the Air Force; her daughter is a dental assistant.)

While Ohi’s parents are gone now, she visits Thailand every year to reconnect with her bothers, cousins, aunts, and uncles there. 

Ohi Suhre is very proud of her Classic Cleaners “village” and of being able to restore the beauty of clothes she “couldn’t believe could be cleaned”. Ohi speaks no fewer than five languages (Thai, Greek, Japanese, English, and even a little German), and is trying to learn Spanish. 

Whatever language you speak, though, Ohi says it all in one short sentence:  “My goal is to make customers happy.”

Recently on this blog, we’ve told two wedding gown restoration success stories:

Classic Cleaners of Indianapolis restores improperly cleaned wedding gown to glorious beauty!

Classic Cleaners restores 1947 wedding gown–beautiful bride wears it with pride!

We use the same processes in Classic Cleaners’ safe, gentle, and highly effective wedding gown restoration service and Classic Cleaners’ safe, gentle, and highly effective cleaning and MuseumCare preservation service for wedding gowns.

The main difference between the two services is this: We restore wedding gowns that have become discolored or otherwise damaged over time, and we clean and preserve recently worn wedding gowns so that they do not become damaged over time. Of course, once the gown is restored and worn again in a ceremony, it needs to be preserved thereafter to keep it beautiful for the next bride in your family.

One of the tools we use to preserve your precious gown is our archival-quality wedding gown preservation box. In this post I’m including two pictures of the box. The first is a professional photograph of the box, which, as you can see, has an inner box with a see-through window and an outer box.

The other photo is not professional (I took it!), but I’m posting it here to show you that we put our preservation boxes on display in many of our stores. In the display models, the outer box has been cut away to show the inner box, but, of course, that’s just for display.

Classic Cleaners’ archival-quality wedding gown preservation boxes have many special features to keep your gown clean and odor-free while preserving its original beautiful color as time goes by. As we say on our wedding gown preservation page (linked to above),

We layer your gown with acid-free tissue and carefully fold it into an acid-free, archival-quality preservation box. We store metal buttons and findings and shoulder pads separately, stuffing the sleeves, bodice, and folds with additional acid-free tissue to prevent hard wrinkles. The preservation box, designed especially for this purpose, allows the gown to breathe, keeping it in perfect condition for many decades to come.

The box itself is made of acid-free materials and lets your gown breathe.

We’ve earned a reputation of having the best wedding gown preservation service in Indianapolis because we take such exquisite care with your gown. For a gratis consultation on your gown, please visit your favorite Classic Cleaners location or contact us at the number below!

–Matt
The Classic Cleaners Blog Team

•For immediate help with cleaning, please call (317) 845-5244 or email us
•Share your Classic Cleaners stories and photos on this blog
•RSS this blog

Customers trust Classic Cleaners to clean and preserve their wedding gowns with the highest level of care–and achieve the highest level of success!

Once our customers see the incredible results we offer, they are sure to come back to us when the need arises. Sometimes the same gown is worn by several brides, as in this beautiful story, and sometimes the customer trust us with more than one dress over time, as in the following example of our work.

This dress was the fourth dress entrusted to us by the mother of four daughters. The photo at the right shows the dress after cleaning but before preservation and packing in an archival-quality box.

The composite photo shows areas of the dress after cleaning (top) and before cleaning (bottom). As you can see, this dress needed a thorough (but gentle) cleaning to return to its original beauty. The gown had yellowed quite a bit since it was last worn (click on the photo for a larger image).

This beautiful gown features delicate lace and thousands of fine beads. Our gentle process protects lace and beads–yet attains these marvelous results. To learn more about Classic Cleaners’ gentle but effective wedding gown cleaning and preservation process, please click here.

–Matt
The Classic Cleaners Blog Team

Recently on this blog, we’ve told two wedding gown restoration success stories:

Classic Cleaners of Indianapolis restores improperly cleaned wedding gown to glorious beauty!

Classic Cleaners restores 1947 wedding gown–beautiful bride wears it with pride!

We use the same processes in Classic Cleaners’ safe, gentle, and highly effective wedding gown restoration service and Classic Cleaners’ safe, gentle, and highly effective cleaning and MuseumCare preservation service for wedding gowns.

The main difference between the two services is this: We restore wedding gowns that have become discolored or otherwise damaged over time, and we clean and preserve recently worn wedding gowns so that they do not become damaged over time. Of course, once the gown is restored and worn again in a ceremony, it needs to be preserved thereafter to keep it beautiful for the next bride in your family.

One of the tools we use to preserve your precious gown is our archival-quality wedding gown preservation box. In this post I’m including two pictures of the box. The first is a professional photograph of the box, which, as you can see, has an inner box with a see-through window and an outer box.

The other photo is not professional (I took it!), but I’m posting it here to show you that we put our preservation boxes on display in many of our stores. In the display models, the outer box has been cut away to show the inner box, but, of course, that’s just for display.

Classic Cleaners’ archival-quality wedding gown preservation boxes have many special features to keep your gown clean and odor-free while preserving its original beautiful color as time goes by. As we say on our wedding gown preservation page (linked to above),

We layer your gown with acid-free tissue and carefully fold it into an acid-free, archival-quality preservation box. We store metal buttons and findings and shoulder pads separately, stuffing the sleeves, bodice, and folds with additional acid-free tissue to prevent hard wrinkles. The preservation box, designed especially for this purpose, allows the gown to breathe, keeping it in perfect condition for many decades to come.

The box itself is made of acid-free materials and lets your gown breathe.

We’ve earned a reputation of having the best wedding gown preservation service in Indianapolis because we take such exquisite care with your gown. For a gratis consultation on your gown, please visit your favorite Classic Cleaners location or contact us at the number below!

–Matt
The Classic Cleaners Blog Team

•For immediate help with cleaning, please call (317) 845-5244 or email us
•Share your Classic Cleaners stories and photos on this blog
•RSS this blog

Congratulations to Brooke Hynds Mackin, who celebrated her wedding on August 15, 2009. She was the third bride to wear this gorgeous wedding gown, the other two being…

• Brooke’s mother Cindy Timanus Hynds on May 12, 1979
• Brooke’s grandmother Evelyn Galucci Timanus on August 24, 1947

The wedding gown was originally made by Evelyn’s sister-in-law, Mary Gallucci, who, according to the family, was like a mother to Evelyn. When Evelyn was 13 years old, she found a photograph of this dress in a magazine, clipped it out, and asked Mary to make it for her future wedding day. Mary made the dress without a pattern.

Here is Brooke in her gown, which looks virtually as new as it did 62 years ago:

Here is a photo that shows all three brides in the dress (click on photo for a larger image):

How is it possible that a wedding gown of this great age can look so new? Wedding gown restoration by Classic Cleaners can make vintage weddings dresses look virtually like new (click here to learn more).

The technology is truly amazing and produces results like these (“before” on the left and “after” on the right, in case it isn’t clear!):

There is no Photoshop trickery at work here, friends. The dress was really that yellow–and it really is possible to get it that white!

We believe that Classic Cleaners offers the best wedding gown restoration and wedding gown preservation service in the Indianapolis area. You or your loved one can look as beautiful as Brooke did in a classic wedding gown! Please contact us today for a free consultation!

–Matt
The Classic Cleaners Blog Team