Prada Purse

Keeping your white purses white can be difficult. I don't recommend using light colored purses for traveling or under conditions that you are unsure of the environment they will be exposed to. Use black or dark purses under these circumstances.

As you can see, most general dirt and grime can be removed to make that white bag one of your favorites again.

Ralph Lauren Purse

This Ralph Lauren signature fabric purse looked even worse than the picture reflects. The lining was heavily stained with numerous ink marks. The lining cleaned up very well, a few highlighter marks remained. All leather details were dyed and conditioned as original.

Juicy Couture Purse

We see a lot of Juicy Couture purses. Most aren't in as bad a condition as this one. However, don't give up on yours until we see if it is salvageable.

Why Purse Cleaning

A few years ago we had a very good dry cleaning customer that asked us to clean her purse. As with most dry cleaners and even specialty cleaners we all shied away from cleaning purses and I tried to talk her out of it. It turns out this was a brand new Prada purse that she spent $900 on. She said she would accept all the risk and had to try because her husband would never buy her another purse if he found out she ruined this one so quickly. We gave it a go and the purse turned out great.

Being the dry cleaner for most all the high fashion and couture shops in Southern California I was weekly walking into salons such as Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. The prime retail space in the salons was dedicated to purses and accessories and the clothing was in the back. When I inquired with the store manager I was told that those are the high price point items and their fastest moving product. Well, I immediately determined that Margaret's needed to be able to provide cleaning service for purses.

There was nobody in the industry to train on purse cleaning and when I set out on this project everybody tried to dissuade me that we would loose our shirt because most purses just can't be cleaned well. I didn't adhere to their advice and began the service anyway. We had to purchase some hand cleaning equipment and even had some tools custom built. The first hundred or so purses were painstaking and we cut our teeth slowly. As of writing this entry we have successfully cleaned over 3,000 purses and have pretty much seen it all. Everything from washing the signature fabric Gucci in the washing machine to a can of root beer exploding in their Christian Dior. The audio testimonial on our purse cleaning page was the customer that had the "brilliant" idea to clean her Gucci purse in the washing machine. We had to completely redye the fabric and refinish the leather and the customer loved the results.

Introduction

Hello, my name is Chuck Horst. I am writing this bog to provide needed information with regards to the care and service of all types of handbags and purses. I will be documenting some of our actual cleaning and repair experiences at Margaret's as well as answering questions that may be of interest to the readers.

Let me start with some generalizations. Purses are not designed or manufactured to be cleaned. On the other hand, clothing is required by the Federal Trade Commission to list at least one acceptable means of care for the garment. This is what leads to those funny symbols on the care labels in all our clothing (follow this link for a copy of the Clothing Care Symbol Guide). There is no such requirement for garment accessories such as purses. Since there is no cleaning requirement, few if any designers take the cleaning or servicing into consideration. When you consider having a purse cleaned it really does need to be handled by a specialist.

Margaret's is most likely the nation's largest purse cleaning service provider. We have a full time staff dedicated to providing purse cleaning service including fabric, suede, leather, synthetic and combination of materials. Cleaning, redying and conditioning are all provided. In cleaning purses, each one is a new project and the cleaning method needs to be assessed individually. With the volume of purses we process we have determined the best servicing technique for each purse. When you bring yours in to one of our stores or send it in utilizing our CleanByMail service we have already determined and tested the best cleaning method.

CLOTHING CARE SYMBOL GUIDE:
http://http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/products/cln-card.pdf