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Trench Coat Dry Cleaning

Your guide to coat dry cleaning.

Caring for your trench and other coats is important for both aesthetic and sanitary reasons. Often, people wait until their coat shows obvious signs of wear-and-tear OR a mishap. While it’s important to care for your coats in these instances, regular maintenance not only preserves the integrity of the garment, ensuring its longevity, but also safeguards the investment made in quality outerwear.

When Should You Clean Your Coat

To extend a coat’s lifetime, you should be evaluating your cleaning schedule. In fact, cleaning your coat is essential at various intervals. For a general rule of thumb, you should dry cleaning at least once a season.

Determine Wear-and-Tear

However, we suggest you ask yourself a few questions before making a decision:

  • Are you riding the subway or other mass transit? When riding public transportation, you have limited opportunities to protect your coat from other people, dirty seats, and other outside factors.
  • Are you wearing your coat quite regularly? Trench coats and other bad weather outerwear may see more than their fair share of the outside world when compared to a special occasion jacket.
  • Are you adventurous and have chosen to wear a white or light-colored coat? Light colors pick up everything. However, you must already know this!

If you said ‘yes’ to any of these questions above, you may want to clean your coat more regularly. If you would like to play by ear, we then suggest inspect your coats regularly. Check your coat overall – and then the collar, wrist cuffs, etc. At this time, also inspect your buttons to make sure they aren’t loose or missing.

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Pre-Storage Cleaning

Before storing a coat, we advise our customers to clean them. (This rule is for any item that is going to be stored away for a season or two.)  Even if your garment looks clean, there may be trouble areas including potential invisible stains. A proper dry cleaning experience removes any accumulated dirt, oils, or stains.

We cannot speak about storage without providing you some extra tips.

  • Store in a cedar or temperature-controlled storage space
  • Never store in plastic or non-breathable garment bag

Winter Weather Care

When you live in the New York City Metro area, your coat is going to see it’s fair share of rain, sleet, snow, and salt. These and other pollutants are the perfect reason for a proper (and prompt) trip to the dry cleaner. And if you have your trench cared for, be sure to request a waterproof treatment. Burberry, Loro Piana, and other luxury designer outerwear may require an additional level of care. Trust these pieces to a qualified professional dry cleaner.

Trench Coat Dry Cleaning

Coats, particularly trench coats, serve as timeless wardrobe staples. Beyond the tangible benefits, the act of caring for your coats reflects a broader commitment to your personal style.You invested in your wardrobe so invest in the piece.

Don’t underestimate the importance of proper trench coat care. After a long day, we would like to think that you inspect your trench coat. However, we completely understand that you have other things on your mind so this doesn’t always happen.

Winter Coat Cleaning

Wool coats, puffer jackets and other winter outerwear also require proper care. Depending on their regular wear, they may not need the same level of care. It really depends on the fabric, trim, and other factors.

A suede coat or leather jacket requires a suede and leather expert. When cleaning a leather garment, there may need to be spot cleaning, color-matching, and other advanced techniques.

When it comes to fur, this is a whole other level of care. Do not attempt to clean a fur coat at home. Without the proper solvents and techniques, you may end up drying the fur or cause additional damage.

How to Inspect Your Favorite Coat

Prior to hanging any item up or putting away for the day, take a few minutes for a post-day inspection. When inspecting, look for visible stains and fabric disturbances. Check the following:

  • full inspection of front and back
  • deeper look at wrists, hem, and neckline
  • check buttons to see if they’re loose (or missing!)

If your trench coat has a belt, look for any signs of wear-and tear including fraying. This is also a good time to look at the belt loops to see that the stitches are still intact.

Home Cleaning vs the Dry Cleaning Process

Before attempting any coat care, start with checking the care label. If it states “Dry Clean Only”, then your attempt should hopefully stop there. Going any further may cause damage to your coat. And yes, this includes putting down that stain remover stick. Unless you have previously checked the stain remover (in a small hidden area), you do not want to just dive into stain removal.

The label is an excellent source for care instructions such as: type of fabric, machine wash acceptable (e.g. gentle cycle), dry clean only, drying process (e.g. dry flat).  water temperature, laundry detergents (e.g. mild detergent), and any other special care details.

If the label provides instructions, then follow them exactly. While stain removal should always be left to the expert, we do understand that you may want to attempt a simple pre-treatment at home. For many stains, vinegar does the trick. A clean white cloth with diluted vinegar can be blotted gently to lift the stain.

Brave enough to use your washing machine? Protect your trench coat as much as possible by turning inside out. Then, use a mesh laundry bag for extra protection. If possible, wash your coat in its own cycle.

As a leading couture dry cleaner, we are not here to scare you but rather inform you. Time and time again, we have met clients (and brand new clients) with an emergency garment care ask. They either attempted to care for an item at home or went to a mom and pop shop.

Dry clean only items should be dry-cleaned. Luxury garments and outerwear should be left to a couture cleaner.

Trust Your Professional Cleaners

Whether your drop-off or schedule a pick-up, your coat will be thoroughly inspected prior to cleaning. Once cleaned and finished, it will once again be inspected. And wait….one last time prior to packaging for its return home.

Regular spot cleaning for minor stains and professional dry cleaning when necessary contribute to the coat’s overall upkeep. Ultimately, a well-timed cleaning regimen not only enhances the garment’s appearance but also ensures that it continues to provide the comfort and style for which it was originally chosen.

So like we tell our clients, consider regular preventative maintenance. If you wear your trench coat or other coat weekly, you may wish to have them dry cleaned every month or other month depending on wear. Take the subway to work, you may need to visit monthly to keep the outer layer looking great. If you ever have questions, stop by either of our store locations or schedule a pick-up for a proper evaluation.

Pick-up Request (New Customers)

  • MM slash DD slash YYYY
    All requests made after 10:30 AM will be scheduled for the next day we are in your area.
  • MM slash DD slash YYYY
    When possible, please allow for our standard one-week turnaround. Specialty items may require additional time. If we cannot accommodate your requested return date, we will be sure to contact you.
  • Please take a moment to familiarize us with some of your preferences.

    Tip: Items delivered in a breathable bag are suitable for longer term storage. When delivered on a hanger, the items should not be left in the plastic bag for an extended period of time.

  • Shirt Laundry Preferences: Our recommended default is a light starch.
  • Please indicate "To Be Determined" if applicable.

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