WHAT WENT WRONG: READER QUERY
PATCHY GREY: Mother of The Bride black and white dress, RIGHT, designed by Veni Infantino and made by Ronald Joyce. After cleaning, the white areas had become patchy grey
FADING GLORY: Care label information noted ‘Specialist Dryclean Only – . Do not wash, bleach or tumble dry. Cool iron. Remove all trims’. [Note that even the print on the label has faded!] Fibre Content information: ‘100% Polyester. Lining 100% polyester.’
fibre since the 1950s and first became popular and well known to the public under the brand name Terylene. Over the years, its use has expanded across a wide section of workwear and personal wear clothing. Polyester textiles are now found across the range of high value clothing and while it has always been regarded as an easy-care fibre, with virtually bullet- proof dye fastness, in more recent times many cleaners have found to their cost that the colour fastness of polyester fabrics can no longer be relied upon. The technical cause of this problem is almost certainly failure on the part of the dyer to adequately rinse or remove all surplus dye from the fabric. For black fabrics to be used with a contrasting colour, as here, it may be necessary to use a rinse additive, such as sodium dithionite.
Responsibility
The fabric dyer and garment maker should bear the primary responsibility here, but
the retailer should have checked with the supplier that the garment had been checked for drycleanability. This was a fairly expensive designer dress (estimated value c.£700), with a ‘specialist clean’ instruction, so an experienced professional cleaner would have removed the trim around the waist and carried out a simple rub-test to check dye-fastness of the garment and trim against the solvent they were using. This is particularly important if the solvent is different from that on the care label. If found to be colourfast, they would have either protected the trim or removed it before going ahead with the cleaning. A cleaner specialising in the care of high value and designer label items would have established the value of the dress during reception and probably priced the cleaning charge in relation to the stated value. Had the risk of cleaning been considered unacceptable (as here), a specialist cleaner would have referred the customer back to
the retailer or possibly accepted the dress at ‘Owners Risk for dye bleed’.
Rectification
In a case like this, the cleaner rarely gets lucky, but a reclean in distilled solvent stands a remote chance of solving the problem. However, if a replacement could be found for the waist trim, and the black and white parts of the dress separated, the white top and lining could then be bleached by steeping in a solution of up to 5% sodium dithionite (5g/ltr) in warm water; this is a powerful reducing agent and will decolour most dyes, so care should be taken to prevent contact with coloured fabrics. Gloves and eye protection should be worn. This should be done outside or in a well-ventilated area using a plastic container because it gives off a strong smell of hydrogen sulphide (which is poisonous). Check frequently and remove and rinse thoroughly as soon as the whiteness has been restored.
We are most grateful to The Guild of Cleaners and Launderers for allowing us to expand on an ‘Amber Alert’ dye bleed item to help illustrate this article.
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