FEATURE Taking centre stage
Samantha Dent, Marketing manager of Miele Professional GB & IE, explains how the company helped Gillmans support Costume Source to keep dance costumes show ready.
Costume Source is the UK’s leading provider of dance costume hire, working with schools, studios and production teams across the country. The company looks after a large and varied collection of costumes. Sequins, tassels, glitter, layered fabrics and delicate trims are all
part of the daily workload. Each piece needs to look sharp when it reaches a customer, so the laundry process plays a central role in the service they offer.
Although a costume may only be worn for a short time on stage, it still needs to be ready to shine, performance after performance. Colours need to stay bright. Shapes need to hold. Embellishments need to stay intact. For Costume Source, the laundry is not a back-office function. It's the star of the show that keeps the whole operation moving.
When high demand put the domestic
setup under the spotlight In the early days, Costume Source relied on a small set of domestic machines. They served their purpose for a time, but as bookings increased, the limits became obvious. Turnaround times tightened and the team often found themselves working around the equipment rather than with it. Costumes arrived back in a wide range of conditions. Some needed only a quick refresh, while others required more careful handling to protect their detailing. With little
time between hires, the domestic setup could no longer keep pace.
The pressure on the garments added to the strain. Sequins, tassels and glued trims are easily damaged in cycles not designed for such delicate garments; and repeated washing made gentle, controlled processes even more important. To maintain quality and scale sustainably, the business needed a commercial system which could protect every costume and deliver predictable results.
As the business continued to grow, increasing capacity was only one part of the requirement. The costumes being processed are made from a variety of materials, many of which need careful handling to help maintain their shape and appearance over repeated hires. The move to commercial equipment also created an opportunity to look more closely at the laundry processes themselves, introducing equipment with additional programmability and access to wet-cleaning processes designed for more delicate garment care. Alongside the greater throughput the business needed, this provided a stronger foundation for preserving the quality and longevity of the costume collection.
Expanding the laundry setup into the
next act Costume Source began upgrading its laundry in 2022 by installing Miele Professional equipment, a step which reshaped the way the team worked. So, when the business moved into a larger unit in 2025, they chose to build on
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