Restoration Hardcore- Repair Wardrobe Investments

Q:What do all three of these have in common?

A: They were all wardrobe investments. 

So what happens to them when they break, get a stain or are attacked by moths? Who do you trust  your family heirlooms or investment pieces to? I have found an article that unearthed the country’s best wardrobe restoration experts.  I would suspect in thier line of work they are considered to be more like magicans… with special potions and stratagies without all the smoke and mirrors.  Certainly they come at a premium but seriously, do you really want to subject your $2000 pair of silk heels to the corner cobbler?  I didn’t think so.  Here is a great article on how to take care of your clothing investments. 

Lifestyles and interest change over time, and changing an older home to suit the needs of home buyers today is challange that face many buyers and sellers today.  The more separate formal spaces of the homes built before 1980 have given way to the open multi-purpose living spaces people want today.  Though tearing out walls and blowing up ceilings of an older home can be a bit nerve racking, having to work within the limitations of an existing structure can yield interesting and financially rewarding results. 

 I love helping people make informed decisions on their most cherished investments- buying a house! 

  OUTERWEAR

For 25 years, Michael Ehrlich, president of the Chicago reweaving company Without A Trace (withoutatrace.com) has restored moth-eaten, cat-clawed garments, including Pope John Paul II’s papal robes and a pair of pants for a pre-Presidential Barack Obama. Mr. Ehrlich’s painstaking process, which involves harvesting individual threads from hidden inside seams to patch holes, can take anywhere from two weeks to several months to complete. “I once got a Burberry cashmere coat that had 75 holes?it was attacked by moths,” said Mr. Ehrlich. “The guy paid $550 to reweave them, but it had to be a $5,000 coat. For something like that it is definitely worth it.”

HANDBAGS

Of course, just as it is with physicians and dentists, sometimes it’s best not to wait for a major problem to visit the Birkin bag doctor. “The key is maintenance,” said Chris Moore, the president of Artbag (artbag.com), the leather goods equivalent of Canyon Ranch Spa.

“If it’s your everyday bag, you should have it professionally cleaned at least every six months, which will also moisturize it. If it’s a lighter color, then once a season.” But eventually, some wear and tear is inevitable.

Mr. Moore’s New York handbag repair house has serviced the accessories of such boldface names as Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie O. since 1932. “More often than not, there’s a schedule of how your handbag’s going to fall apart,” he said. “It’s going to be the handle or the handle’s connectors that will go first. From there, you go on to your zippers, then the bottom corners, especially the piping. We can rectify all of that.”

FUR

When it comes to taking scissors to a garment equivalent in worth to a semester or two at Brown, it behooves you to trust only the best. “We’ve been in business for over 75 years. If you bought a fur coat at Neimans, Bergdorf or Bloomingdale’s and it wore out and you needed skins [to repair it], the coat usually ended up in our store,” said Larry Cowit, who, along with his brother Steve, is the third-generation owner of Henry Cowit, Inc. (cowitfurs.com), the esteemed fur-matching business near New York’s Garment District.

“There used to be 100 fur-matchers in the country. There’s only one left now, and we’re it,” Larry Cowit said. The largest buyers of used furs around, the Cowits have almost 3,000 coats in their inventory from muskrat to Russian squirrel some of which are sacrificed to patch up their clients’ furs. Once upon a time, they painstakingly created a fur Swoosh on one gentleman’s Nikes to match his blue iris mink jacket before a New Year’s Eve bash. “With skins, we can match the color of a 10-year-old coat that has oxidized?nobody else can do that like us.”

SHOES

WALK THIS WAY Completely rebuild the body of your partied-out shoe. (Belle de Nuit, $1,595, Roger Vivier, New York, 212-861-5371.)

Los Angeles workshop Pasquale Shoe Repair (pasqualeshoerepair.com) has serviced the heels of Madonna, Christina Aguilera and Kim Basinger, as well as also countless movie industry projects, including one of the three original pairs of ruby slippers used in the “Wizard of Oz.” “What happens 80 percent of the time is that a shoe just looks partied out. The heels wear out, the bottoms are worn through,” said owner Pasquale Fabrizio. “But the shoe was built, so you can rebuild it. It’s like bodywork on a car. When we take a shoe apart, everything goes back the same way, and you never know we were in there.” However, cautioned Mr. Fabrizio, “The disadvantage is that there are few craftsmen out there who can really execute it.” Mr. Fabrizio’s team routinely fields requests for everything from adding built-in orthotics (with a doctor’s prescription) to making vertiginous heels feel as walkable as flats using concealed padding. But some balk when they’re quoted a price. “There are people who come in and say, ‘This is outrageous?$200?’ They end up going to someone else for $120, and more often than not, they come back in tears,” said Mr. Fabrizio.

GOWN DOWN? Submit your couture to a customized stain removal process. (Embroidered Gown, $25,900, Valentino, New York, 212-772-6969.)

COUTURE

While the price of repair can be costly, investing in a specialist can not only save the day, but also avert a disaster with a vintage gown. At New York dry cleaning institution Meurice Garment Care (garmentcare.com), each piece is individually inspected before it’s put through a customized treatment tailored to each fabric and stain type.

So, a red wine spill on a silk blouse is submitted to a completely different regimen than a splotch of motor oil on the cuff of a wool pant. “Most dry cleaners have one solvent, one machine,” said Wayne Edelman, the company’s president, who also consults designer brands on their clothing care. “I always say, beware of the plumber who shows up to work on your new faucet with a screwdriver and a pair of vice grips.”

Antique clothing, he said, is especially tricky business: “We do a lot of vintage work, but it’s funny stuff, because people want to maintain the patina. So we’re very clear about their expectations.” While the cleaner on your corner may suffice for some of your wardrobe, Mr. Edelman cautioned, “sequins, beading, mixed-material?say, a white cashmere coat with black leather trim [which could bleed into the cashmere]?you should definitely send that stuff to a specialist. You need the right tool to do the job.”

JEWELRY

When your limited-edition Panerai stops ticking or your great-great aunt’s pearls need restringing, Cos Altobelli?the third-generation president of the Burbank, Calif. institution Altobelli Jewelers (altobelli.com)?is the man to see. Mr. Altobelli, who’s done jewelry-related prop work for close to 100 Hollywood films (not to mention repairs and historical restorations for untold numbers of studio brass), deals with a growing number of clients willing to ship their broken tickers and loose settings across the country to be fixed. “Our state-of-the-art equipment affords us a lot more latitude with repairs,” he said. “We work with lasers when torch work is not possible.

Without the laser, you have to remove the stones to do the soldering and then re-set them. We don’t have to do that here.” These advanced tools have also made remodeling bijoux a cinch. “It’s relatively easy with computers. We send sketches of what we can do, modify those, and get to a point where we can send a client a three-dimensional drawing.

We can even carve the piece in wax and send it to the person to approve or modify. So they’re not just looking at a screen?they actually have a three-dimensional thing in their hand,” said Mr. Altobelli. “We’re not impatient about anything. We want somebody to be happy and secure about what we’re going to do. So if we have to send it back and forth three or four times, it doesn’t make a difference until we get it right.”