The Gown from North Carolina

This weeks garment comes to Jeeves of Belgravia, New York by way of Greenville, North Carolina.

It is a couture silk chiffon gown with a silk leaf design that includes beaded and rhinestone trim. The client hand carried the gown to Jeeves last week while she was in New York.

The main issue with cleaning this beaded gown is that the layers of fabric are extremely fragile. Our pre-cleaning condition report also indicated that some of the stains at oxidized (turned yellow).

Our head cleaning technician was up to the task and hand cleaned the entire gown to remove all traces of soiling. A “q-tip” was used to apply an anti-oxidation cleaning solution to the yellowed areas. This staining was greatly reduced, and was no longer noticeable.

The gown was packed in our custom designed wardrobe container for shipping. The gown left our hands today via FEDEX on it’s journey back to

North Carolina.

Wedding Gown Cleaning and Preservation, Part 1

Your wedding is over, and you are just back from your honeymoon. You hang your bridal gown on the back of your bedroom door. You want to have your wedding dress cleaned, but do you trust the dry cleaner that you use for your new husband’s shirts.

Wedding dresses are very special, probably the most special dress  you may ever buy. Not all dry cleaners have the experience to clean a wedding dress.

Yards and yards of silk satin, embellished with lace and Swarovski crystals can not be taken care of like your husband’s cotton shirts.

At Jeeves of Belgravia we take care of your bridal gown correctly, right from the start. When your gown arrives at our shop on 65th Street, just steps from Madison Avenue, a complete pre-cleaning condition report is written by our bridal gown consultant.

This condition report is important because it allows our consultant to discuss with you what we at Jeeves need to attend to. It is our intention to restore your gown as closely to it’s original condition as possible.

Do you think your local dry cleaner will give you a pre-cleaning condition report? Most dry cleaners idea of a condition report is a ticket that says, bridal gown, and maybe if you are lucky, indicates a stain or two.

This is not the way your bridal gown should be treated.

Thanks for listening, Gerald Von Pozniak, Managing Director.

Jeeves of Begravia, New York is “THE” source for bridal gown cleaning, preservation and restoration. Established in New York in 1981, Jeeves is the only world-wide garment care company with locations in; London, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Jakarta, and soon in Dubai.

Jeeves is one of only 40 garment care firms nationwide selected as one of America’s Best Cleaners.

Jeeves offers complimentary nationwide pick-up and delivery of your bridal gown, as well as world-wide shipping.

Sweet 16 Gown

The client who owns this gown had a great time at her Sweet 16 party last month. The only issue is that her friends thought it would be great to have her wear part of the cake.

Brought to us at Jeeves of Belgravia here in New York, was a wonderful party gown covered in butter-cream frosting. And the butter-cream was in a deep shade of green and bright yellow.

The cleaning technicians at Jeeves started their work at once before the food dye in the butter-cream would soak into the fibers and become permanent.

Making matters somewhat complex is that the design of the dress makes cleaning difficult as the applied flowers are very delicate.

Careful hand cleaning first as well as immersion in our Eco-Clean solution yielded a perfect result.

Special gowns need special care, left in the wrong hands this dress could have become a “nightmare” rather than a rather “sweet” Sweet 16.

Thanks for listening, Jerry Pozniak.

Tailoring to go!

Yesterday day while I was consulting with  a client on the Lower East Side I got a call from another client in Oregon.  She owns an on-line clothing service for men.

It seems that her company was getting major press with an opportunity to be seen on a national morning show, but… she needed a tailor to take the measurements for the reporter doing the story in 1/2 hour, on the Upper West Side. Plus the cameras would be rolling.

Without a moment to waste, I jumped into a taxi, stopped at Jeeves of Belgravia on East 65th Street to get my on-site tailoring supplies, and rushed to the West side.

The reporter and camera operator were just wrapping up their last shot as I jumped in with my trusty tape measure in hand.

In just a few minutes  all the measurements were taken and I trust the camera got my good side.

I’ll let you know the name of the company and the morning show once I have an “air date”.  I don’t want to speak prematurely.

Thanks for listening, Jerry Pozniak.

Drapery and window treatment cleaning for spring.

Now that maybe it is spring in New York City, though with the rain over the past two weeks you would hardly know, it is a good time to clean your in-home fabrics.

Did you know that Jeeves of Belgravia, NY has a team of on-site craftsmen? The Jeeves craftsmen can come to your home and usually in one day clean all of your home fabric.

Jeeves guarantees that anything we clean on-site will not shrink and will not be damaged.

What can your man Jeeves actually clean in your home?

• Custom drapery
• Custom fabric window treatments (such as Hunter Douglas Luminette and Silhouette)
• Custom fabric valances
• Throw pillows
• Cornice boards
• Hanging tapestries
• Fabric walls
• Fabric covered headboards
• Dust mite removal and sanitization of mattresses

Jeeves can also take care of:

• Upholstered furniture
• High value oriental rugs (that ordinary carpet cleaner refuse to do.)

Give your man Jeeves a call and our head craftsman will visit your home and issue a complete written inspection report on the condition and soil level in every in-home fabric. There is no charge for this inspection report.

Spring cleaning, well it’s spring and a great time to get started.

Thanks for listening, Jerry Pozniak

Spring Cleaning?

There used to be a time when the ritual of “spring cleaning” was regularly practiced. When I first started working in dry cleaning about 25 years ago many more clients did “spring cleaning”.

Though our spring here in New York City has been less than “spring like” with chilly temperatures and wet weather, it would be a good time to have certain household items cleaned. It is also best to have these items cleaned professionally as most house-staff do not have the proper equipment to do a proper job.

Now is a great time to clean your comforters and duvet covers. Usually it becomes too warm for these items now, so you are less apt to miss them. We are able to clean comforters and duvets using either our Eco-Clean or Wet-Clean methods, both yield a great result with bright colors and a luxurious feel.

Drapery, curtains and upholstered furniture that is in need of cleaning should be taken care of now. Our on-site cleaning team can come to your home and clean your window treatments and furniture. Most of the time our team does not have to remove these items for cleaning, everything will be taken care of on-site and usually in one day.

As the weather improves it is a great time to think about freshening up all of your “home” textiles, after all this is what “spring cleaning” is all about.

The team at Jeeves of Belgravia is up to any task that you may have for us. Just give us a call and your man Jeeves will be on the spot ready to clean anything you may have.

Thanks for listening, Jerry Pozniak

Pleats? Pleats No More.

How do you maintain the pleats in a cotton jersey pleated skirt? Very carefully I might add, especially if the pleats are in the sunburst pattern. (See example to the left.)

A sunburst pleat is very tightly spaced at the top of the garment and gets a bit wider towards the bottom.

The difficulty with these types of pleats is that they cannot be re-pleated using conventional hand ironing.

When making a purchase of a pleated garment consider that if the fabric content is mostly natural fibers (silk, cotton etc.) the likely-hood of the pleats staying sharp after a few wearings is slim to none.

We received a white cotton jersey Lacoste skirt at Jeeves of Belgravia today with the pleats removed by incorrect handling from a poor quality dry cleaner.

The skirt has to be taken apart so that just the fabric panels can be re-pleated. Definitely a job not for the faint-of-heart.

Can the skirt be saved? Yes, but at a cost of over $250 for re-pleating. When you are the best dry cleaner in New York City you have to be able to take care of everything for your clients.

Ask questions, and consider the upkeep before you make a wardrobe investment. Look for the best dry cleaner in your area before sending a special item in for cleaning. You may not be happy with the end result.

Thanks for listening, Jerry Pozniak

Jeeves of Belgravia was  selected as only one of 35 America’s Best Cleaners. Jeeves also holds the Royal Warrant as “the” dry cleaner to HRH the Prince of Wales (Prince Charles and family). Jeeves is also the only world-wide garment care brand.

How to Use a Tailor

Silly statement don’t you think. How to use a tailor; everyone knows what a tailor does.

Or do you?

Besides the usual mending of loose buttons, stuck zippers and having your shortened, are you aware of the services a great tailor can provide?

Here is a list of little known things that can be accomplished with tailoring.

1. Making clothes truly fit. Have something in the back of your closet that never “feels right”. Most of the time we can fix this for you. As they used to say on Saturday Night Live, “When you look good you feel good.”
2. Change the style of a garment. Within reason some garments can be altered to give you a new look.
3. Repair rather than replace. In many occasions it will cost you less to repair a garment than replacing it.

At Jeeves of Belgrava we have truly “great” tailors that are wizards.In fact our head seamstress, Amporo Flores has been with our firm for 28 years.  Bring us something that you would like us to “save” and we will give you an honest assessment of the feasibility.

So when you are looking for a tailor Manhattan, or alterations in Manhattan, just give us a ring and we will take great care of both you and your garments.

Thanks for listening. Jerry Pozniak, owner.

Tory Burch Dress

Hello all and welcome again to the garment of the week.

Today we are going to take a look at a Tory Burch dress that we cleaned about a week ago.

The client requested our Eco-friendly dry cleaning process and according to the care instructions attached to the dress this should have been “no problem”.

We were rather distressed to find that the navy printed portion of the dress was “bleeding” or transferring after cleaning.

This should not happen given the fact that the care instructions indicated that all types of dry cleaning processes were usable on this dress. Our guess is that the maker only tested one type of dry cleaning.

Through careful hand-cleaning and dye removal techniques my head cleaning technician was able to remove all of the dye which had transferred, thus saving the dress from certain doom.

Cheap dry cleaners would give this dress back to their customer and let them deal with the problem. At Jeeves of Belgravia we take care of the problem for you.

4 hours of labor went into correcting this dress for our Jeeves of Belgravia client, but your man Jeeves would not have it any other way.

Jeeves of Belgravia, the best dry cleaner in Manhattan is proud to be one of only 35 garment care firms selected as America’s Best Cleaners.

Emergency Dry Cleaning

On Saturday morning at 8:15 I got an emergency phone call from the head of wardrobe from the American Ballet Theatre. It seemed that the costumes that we were  dry cleaning for Monday were suddenly needed at Lincoln Center by 11:30 for an early curtain.

Thankfully my cellphone number is on all of my business cards from Cameo Cleaners of Gramercy Park. and the wardrobe supervisor just had to call me to solve the problem.

As the best dry cleaner in New York City, I give my clients my cell phone number in case of emergency. In the past 5 years since I have been doing this my clients do not abuse the privilege.

The previous phone call to my cell phone was from a young woman who missed our closing time and was frantic to get her bridesmaid dress for a wedding the next day.

Problem solved and another happy client because of a cell phone number printed on a business card. Imagine if all companies were this easy to deal with.

Thanks for listening. Jerry Pozniak