Before & After: Something's Buggy

We handle a lot of old clothes... stuff that's been sitting for decades, usually in the most out-of-the-way places like attics, basements, the sparest of spare closets.  We've even pulled bundles of clothes from barns, trash heaps, and abandoned houses (with permission, of course).  Those kinds of places tend to be the worst for textiles. 

 Fabric absorbs just about any liquid it touches, and when combined with decades of heat, cold, humidity and such, the resulting stains can be brutal.

 

So when we got to this hand-painted vintage shirt, the damage on it looked pretty rough.  It's a fifty-year-old fabric that'd been sitting in the attic of a Victorian home for most of that time.  A fabulous find, but not with these stains all over.  And the paint was worrisome, as some cleaning solvents would wreck this beautiful work.

 The issues were widespread - and like most vintage clothing, it's hard to tell exactly what created those stains in the first place.  Knowing that key bit of info could unlock the door to removing its stains much more easily and quickly, but with old clothes, it's sometimes impossible.

So instead, we read the tea leaves, so to speak.  The cross-hatching seen below shows that there's an oil base to these stains.  That's an important clue.  Dappled tan marks like this often mean air pollution, but the placement of these suggested that it was pest damage.  Ewww... but not a problem once we mask up and put the gloves on.

The work takes days, sometimes weeks.  The soaks are many, and the chemicals can range from something as simple as water to concoctions that are temperature and time-dependent.  We danced the dance with the little buggers...

And voila!   Several days later, a freshly cleaned shirt is unveiled.

The mottled beige marks and cross-hatched areas were gone, after a series of four or five different soaks and careful scrubbing to the fabric.  This is an acetate material, known to be particularly susceptible to abrasion, so the manual cleaning had to be especially gentle and slow.

The only hint of a remaining stain is an extremely faint yellowish cast that cannot be visually perceived when worn or on camera, though if the fabric were scrupulously inspected and compared from one area to the next, a very keen eye could pick it up.  All in all, a nice solution to a pest of a problem.

Always feels good to get the bugs out! 

This shirt's a modern size 12 and listed in our Etsy shop.

Laundry Day

We wash a lot of vintage clothing... A heckuva lot on some laundry days.  Here's a glimpse of our laundry space, complete with Command Central (above).  This is where we keep all the wash items organized.  There's a blue hangtag for each item getting cleaned, which ones are at the dry cleaner's, and original vintage hangtags saved alongside so they can be re-attached.  On the right are a lint roller, mesh bags for delicates, and sundry other tools we like to keep on the corkboard so they don't get lost on the counters.





A few of our vintage dresses soaking it up!   Many of the vintage fabrics we find are in need of stain removal or just a good freshening.  We specialize in new-old stock vintage clothing, so we get many items that are unworn yet have "tan lines" from air pollution in storage.

Here's an example of one cute 1940s print, never worn, yet with rust spots through the print.  It wasn't especially desirable in its rusty condition, so it's getting pampered today with a long soak and carefully applied rust remover.  Now you see them, soon you won't!

There's so many tools in our cabinets for vintage clothing care... here's a peek at a few, and we promise to show you some tricks in-depth in future posts.  Removing the signs of age from vintage clothes is really a labor of love, and laundry day is one of the most challenging parts of our business... but it's an awesome feeling to restore a beautiful vintage find to pristine condition!

Q & A: Removing Musty Odors From Old Wool

Q: I used to be a designer several decades ago and over the years have collected some wonderful but valuable pieces of yardage. Many pieces are wool that have been stored in plastic bins with other yardage and they all have a musty smell. Will simply having the yardage dry cleaned make these pieces acceptable or is there another trick to restoring the freshness to these pieces? None of these pieces appear to be damaged, just smell old and musty.

I hope you have a good solution for my problem...

A: Dry cleaning would help these items, but if they are pressed or steamed while at the cleaner's, the heat can set the musty odor and make it permanent. You might want to try airing them first, and for several days if possible. The more they can air out unfolded, in shade to avoid fading, the better they'll smell. The ozone present in the air after rainfall is a natural odor eliminator if you can arrange airing then.

You could also try setting them in a closed box with charcoal or baking soda adjacent, as these products will eliminate odors. I'd try these methods before dry cleaning, so that you can minimize what odor remains before the dry cleaner works on them.