Prada Disaster in Toronto

Be careful entrusting your fine handbags to a "trusted" dry cleaner or shoe repair store. Handbag cleaning is a different skill set entirely. The following documents one of our most recent efforts to salvage a purse ruined by an inexperienced dry cleaner.

3/4/2007 CUSTOMER NEEDS HELP

Good afternoon from Toronto Canada. I found your website while "Googling" about cleaning Prada bags and thought I'd send you a quick email. Last May while visiting Italy, I purchased a beautiful WHITE Prada bag in Florence for my 23 year old daughter as a very special, once in a life time gift. As usually happens, the bag became dirty after several months. We called several dry cleaners in Toronto, and a specific one was recommended to us. As you can tell from the photos, the bag was not cleaned successfully and my daughter was very upset and disappointed.

Could you take a look at the photos and let me know if you think there is any way it can be restored. It seems that the leather bled into the fabric and turned it a funny color of light orange.

I am prepared to send the bag via courier if you think it is worth it, given the $ value of the bag was around $700US.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my photos. You're my only hope.

I was evaluating the photos and getting ready to respond when I received the following Email:

3/5/2007 NOW SHE IS PLAYING MY HEART STRINGS

Good morning from Toronto, Canada again. As a follow-up to my email yesterday, I thought I 'd send a photo of my daughter receiving her PRADA bag so that you can get a sense of how special the bag is. I hope you're able to help and look forward to hearing from you.

After receiving the above photograph how could I not take on the project. She obviously loved this bag. It was in very damaged condition for which the photos do not do justice. Dye from the leather had run during the previous cleaning onto the white fabric. Cleaning combination bags (leather and fabric) is very difficult and should be attempted only by the most experienced craftsman. Especially when the leather is sewn onto a light colored fabric as in this case. We tried numerous attempts unsuccessfully to remove the dye. Finally, after some creative "out-of-the-box" thinking we hit on a solution that worked. The photo below shows our customer receiving her bag in it's restored condition.

4/9/2007 REUNITED

Good afternoon Chuck. Just wanted to let you know the bag arrived at my office today around lunch time. I have looked at it and am truly impressed with what you were able to do. Can't wait for my daughter to see it.

Well, she did get to see it. And the rest they say is history.

Juicy Royal Couture

To keep your purse set matching have them cleaned together. Purse cleaning is all done by hand and there is some interpretation during the cleaning process. It may not be necessary to clean the wallet or clutch, but to make sure they continue to be a matching set the cleaner will need to see all the pieces.

Delicate & Beaded Bags

It would be our desire that delicate purses, such as this beaded bag, be brought in for servicing before they get to this point of disrepair. However, if your purse has seen better days these photos give you an idea as to what is possible. Hand cleaning around the delicate beads was time consuming, however I think you will agree the results can be amazing.

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.