Dry Cleaning White Prom Gown

Try Ray's Custom Cleaners in Ft. Worth on Camp Bowie. They clean all kinds of things from leather to Santa Costumes. The Costume shops in Ft. Worth use them for years with great luck - they clean all the special dresses for the shows at Casa Manana and others.

Let me tell you about my experience with Kite's cleaners for my wedding gown. I brought my gown to them after I had had my dress let out and needed the seams steamed open. This is the second cleaner I had been to to steam the seams open from where it was altered, and I should have left it at the previous one because they did at least 2 of the three seams correctly.

Anyway, I decided that since Kites does wedding gowns especially, that they might be best qualified to finish the job, even though they were going to charge $150 to do it (the previous place was only going to charge me $40, but because they didn't do it right completely, they didn't want to charge me at all, btw this is Carleton Cleaners on Forest Park and I should have left my dress in their capable, though somewhat inconsistent hands. Hindsight is 20/20, though.)

I dropped my dress off at Kites, showed them the seams, watched them write down that the one side needed the seams steamed open, we looked over the entire dress, etc. When I went the following Friday to pick it up (a week before I leave for my wedding), the side was still not steamed open!!!!! There are just two huge folded lines still running down the outside of my dress!! Needless to say, I was very upset and they insisted they would have it for me the following Monday (yesterday) by 5:30 and would have it done right.

So I went in yesterday ready to demand that since they didn't do it right the first time, they should not charge me, or at least not $150. Well, the side was steamed open, not as well as I thought it should have been, but the big deal was MY DRESS WAS RIPPED!!!!!! My dress has folded fabric all across the dress and there was a tattered edge hanging down beneath one of the folds in the front part where my thighs would be. I lifted the fold and there was rip (no seam here) all the way from the left to the right of the fabric!!! It was not like that when my seamstress let out the dress (she and I discussed this) nor was it ripped when I was showing them the dress when I first brought it in.

Well, they began insisting that they didn't do it and here is the best part: THEY STILL WANTED TO CHARGE ME $150!!!!!!! They were not going to let me take the dress. I insisted they get the manager on the phone and after many tears and getting my fiancee on the phone, they offered to only charge me 1/2 and to have their tailors fix it! I said, there is no way I am paying for this and their is no way anyone in their company is touching this dress again. Eventually, they consented to let me take the dress, though the managers little teen daughter that was there was insistent that I should have to pay for it.

I was very upset by this experience, and perhaps, if Kite's would have been willing to have good customer service and common sense from the very beginning, I wouldn't be telling everyone I can about this so they know and are warned. If they would have admitted that someone there ripped my dress and offered to fix it or pay for it to be fixed before I found the rip, things might be different. I should have insisted they pay for the repair as well, but as it is, all I want is my dress in one piece for this Saturday so I don't have to worry about it any more. If there would have been other people in there, too, the situation might have been resolved much quicker.

Do not take your dresses here if you care how they look when they come out. Take it anywhere else but here. Just remember, you have been warned.

I've heard (after the fact) that Ray's is good and that's where I should have taken it.

UPDATE: I received a call yesterday (Wednesday) from the owner of Kite’s cleaners, Gary Kite, who had been out of town and had just heard about the situation. He apologized profusely about the incident and about what I had to go through and said that there will be some retraining going on in all of his locations with his teams. He also said that they would be going over my letter point by point to illustrate what went wrong and how it could have been handled better. He assured me that their policy was not being followed in any way during this incident, that when the dress first had to be redone to get the side pressed open right that there should have not been a charge to me at all from that point forward, let alone that the dress would be in such poor condition when I went to pick it up the 2nd time. He offered to help me in any way he could, if I needed reimbursement for the repair, etc and he offered that, if I would be willing to allow them to handle my dress again, they would preserve it at no cost after my wedding.
I was extremely satisfied with his response and feel that he will take the necessary steps to retrain his team regarding policy in such matters.

Kite's Cleaners on Camp Bowie in the Arlington Heights area does a great job with special dresses--wedding dresses etc. They are an 'old fashioned' cleaners.

If you can find a Martinizing around, use them. They use something different. The last one I saw was in Ft. Worth but it's worth the drive especially since it's just a one-off cleaning for the mo'.

Call your local dry cleaner and find out if they clean wedding dresses. If they do have them clean the prom dress the same way. I had mine cleaned at Comet's Cleaners in Fort Worth, but I am sure they all do it. You also need to have them store it for you as well. This way it will not turn yellow.

I would call the Denton College for women and I do not know the name,as they have a museum up there where they have restored a lot of the famous women's gowns. You can not just sew anything on them unless you have document all sorts of stuff like the type or stitch and such. I had a friend do this who found a 90 yr old great grandma's wedding gown. They told her to use mild soap and put it in the bath tub.Whatever they told her she did and it came out beautiful. I would think the fluid would turn it yellow. Treat it like a wedding gown and cleaners should know how to do that. But anyway a suggestion for you. G. W