RAVE FabriCARE'S True Quality Cleaning Blog

Cleaning and restoring exhibition-quality garments for a museum

The Phoenix Art Museum houses one of the finest collections of American and European couture garments and accessories in the nation.

The museum’s 2007 exhibit, entitled “Autovotivated”, featured a new acquisition: a men’s two piece, off-white, wool and cotton blend suit from the early to mid 1930’s.

The suit required extensive restoration.

This blog post demonstrates the results that can be achieved with the application of the right blend of skills, judgement and restoration techniques to a museum-quality garment. Or any other vintage or heirloom piece, for that matter.

Like new & gently used, high-end garments & accessories: Post-purchase cleaning

When you think of purchasing a fine garment or accessory, you might typically think of a traditional, high-end department store or boutique located in a particular geographic area, in a particular street or in a particular shopping mall. In addition to these brick and mortar locations, these stores or boutiques typical offer an online option as well.

With the normalization of the “sharing economy”, the number of non-traditional sources of high-end garments and accessories has mushroomed.

In this post, I highlight some of the non-traditional sources of like new and gently used garments and accessories, identify the more common issues you might encounter after you’ve purchased that garment or accessory, and suggest an approach to restoring that garment or accessory to as close to pristine condition as possible.

Cleaning and restoring vintage garments: What you need to know

So you just purchased a gem of a vintage garment or retrieved one from the far reaches of a close relative or friend’s closet.

Congratulations.

However, it’s more than likely that that vintage garment has not been properly cleaned and/or properly stored over the years.

In this post, I highlight some of the more common issues you might encounter when considering the purchase of a vintage garment and how those issues might impact the cleaning and restoration of that vintage garment prior to wearing it for the first time.