Leather and Suede

Leather and Suede

Leather and suede clothing represent a significant investment in any wardrobe, so it’s important to properly clean these garments to avoid discoloration, shrinkage, and other damage. Thankfully, with today’s cleaning techniques, it’s safer to clean leather and suede than it was in the past, but it’s still advisable to use an experienced leather cleaning service, such as that offered at Churchill Dry Cleaners, to care for your items properly.

Cleaning leather and suede vs. manufactured fabrics

Leather and suede garments are usually thicker and more durable than other fabrics, and the cleaning technique required is significantly different from what manufactured fabrics require. While modern woollen, cotton, and synthetic fabrics have become relatively uniform in quality, each leather and suede garment is unique because they come from individual animals. Leather and suede stretches, cracks, peels, and shrinks, and can lose their natural or dyed colours when worn frequently. Leather and suede clothing won’t withstand cleaning with the same resilience as manufactured and standardised fabrics. Without the proper cleaning technique, leather and suede clothing is easy to irreversibly damage, which makes handling it a precise and delicate process. Churchill Dry Cleaners understands this process well and works carefully to clean and restore your leather and suede clothing to the best possible condition.

The custom fit of leather and suede clothing

Over time, as you wear leather and suede clothing, it adjusts to fit your particular body shape, similar to how shoes gradually adjust to conform to your feet. Depending on the type of garment, leather and suede clothing endures scuffing, scraping, wear and tear, spills, drips, water, dirt, grease, and a variety of other damaging conditions. Many view leather jackets as “rugged” clothing and treat them as such when worn for riding motorcycles and other outdoor activities. Unfortunately, such rugged wear takes a toll on the garment, and it eventually requires cleaning and even repair. Expecting suede or leather clothing to return to its original condition after cleaning is usually unrealistic because of the way it becomes “broken in.”

Special cleaning considerations for suede and leather clothing

When it’s time to clean your leather and/or suede clothing, using Churchill Dry Cleaners experienced leather cleaning service is the best course of action. Common problems that can occur when cleaning leather and suede yourself include wrinkles, texture changes, shrinkage, and colour changes.

We offer two options for leather and suede:

  1. Traditional dry cleaning with the emphasis on careful drying to minimise shrinkage. This option is used for inexpensive items that are not complicated in their design. Turnaround time for this service is 2-3 days.
  2. Specialist cleaning is employed for more expensive and intricately designed items. Turnaround time for this service is 1-2 weeks.

Traditional dry cleaning of leather and suede clothing doesn’t always yield good results, and the last thing you want is for your items to be unwearable. Leather and suede garments that consist of two matching or coordinating pieces must be cleaned together to avoid any variation in texture or colour than can result from even the best leather cleaning process.

For our specialist service, patented Italian technology is used which had been specifically designed for the cleaning of natural skin wears. This is a  totally new technology in cleaning natural skins and as a result it improves quality and reduces traditional adverse affects of cleaning suede and leathers such as running glues. Once cleaned, the garments are carefully dried on purpose build clothes mannequins to reduce shrinkage and ensures the garment retains its shape.

Cleaning leather and suede properly is an intricate process because it doesn’t function like other natural and manufactured fabrics. The same cleaning techniques used for cottons, silks, and synthetic fabrics are either ineffective or damaging to leather and suede clothing, and it doesn’t make sense to waste your investment. Trust your leather and suede clothing to the expert cleaning services offered by Churchill Dry Cleaners and protect, preserve, and restore them for years of comfortable and fashionable wear.

 

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