Melting shirt does $4000 damage to dry cleaner load

By Robyn Ironside

Continued from previous post...After a "tortuous" month of negotiations - in which Mr Londy threatened to take New Twist to court - the company finally paid up in full.

Mr Londy said problems with incorrectly-labelled garments were all too common.

"I've had three beaded dresses melt in the last week. It's the bling that's the problem," he said. Often the beads were added by the wearer without any thought to the care and cleaning of the garment, Mr Londy said.

"It's impossible to tell which beads will endure the dry-cleaning process. Not long ago we had a $15,000 wedding dress ruined when the bodice melted. Fortunately the designer agreed to replace it," he said.

Mr Pyott said he had only been involved in three cases where problems with a single garment were responsible for wrecking an entire load.

"It's tragic enough when one garment goes wrong in the dry-cleaning process but it's a disaster when a whole batch is damaged," he said.

"Generally it's the high end of the fashion industry too. Wedding dresses and evening dresses in particular, which is very distressing for the owner."

Mr Pyott said there were three main problems with dry cleaning, the first being incorrect labelling, followed by dry cleaner error.

"You also see garments where the wearer has spilt something on it, which comes out as a stain in the dry-cleaning process because of the heat," he said.

I can't imagine if my favorite dress was damaged after entrusting it to a dry cleaner company.The manufacturers should also be particular on the materials it uses. It can tests the materials before using it in order to prevent dry cleaning problems. Moreover, the dry cleaning company should take it extra care in the process of dry cleaning any garments.