Guild of Cleaners and Launderers Meeting 27th March 2018

Amber Alert from the Guild (UK): Louis Vuitton dress

In its most recent press release, the British Guild of Cleaners and Launderers released an Amber Alert with an example of an expensive Louis Vuitton Paris dress. The designer dress care labelled suitable for dry cleaning in perc, however as the skirt was made from Polyurethane the drycleaner chose to hand wash the dress not trusting the PU to be safe in perchloroethylene. The dress hand washed successfully and was handed back to a delighted customer who had previously been advised by the dry cleaner that the dress could be damaged in dry cleaning and asked for her permission to hand wash her valuable garment.

 

This shows a good example of a dry cleaner using knowledge and experience to avoid a potential claim gaining the trust of the customer who will be loyal to the cleaner, hopefully passing on their
trust to friends and contacts. Obviously we cannot say that other items of the same type will have the same problem, or that a different method of cleaning may have had a more satisfactory result, because this was not tested, but we advise caution and that you carry out your own test if you are going to clean this type of garment.

Read also – The Technical Bulletin of the British Guild of cleaners and launderers on WOPCOM!