Wedding Dress Ruined by Dry-Cleaners

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QED

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My wife (of 6 weeks) left in her wedding dress to be dry-cleaned in a well established dry-cleaners with a good reputation.

The tag said the dress is dry-clean only and there was never any mention of risks etc. to the dress by dry-cleaning.

Last week, the dress was collected and it is basically ruined - it has lost its shape and style and there is damage to some of the fabric.

My wife met the the manager todayand he has said that it is not their fault and we need to contact the makers of the dress.

I am fuming and will not let this go. What rights do we have and what would you advice me to do next?
 
What result are you looking for? do you want the cost of the dress back or have it replaced??. Personally if the Dry Cleaners did as the label said then I wouldn't assume that it was their fault? - did they confirm that they just dry cleaned it i.e didn't do any other treatments etc?.
 
The plan was to keep the dress either:

- for sentimental reasons
- to pass on to someone later
- to sell later

It is no longer usable for any of the above so I am looking for compensation to have it fixed or replaced.

My ten minutes of 'googling' has shown that it is difficult to prove whether the manufacturer or dry-cleaner is at fault.

Some of the damage is to stitching etc. and looks like rough handling as much as chemical damage.
 
Hi QED, how did you get on with the above? The exact thing is after happening to me except my dress split across the front done by the knees, the beading came off and its gone yellow and material has changed texture. The dry cleaner said she followed the tag and she was very upset over it. I contacted the manager of the shop where I bought it and of course she pointed the finger at the dry cleaners. Im not letting this go either. You pay to much money for a dress for it to end up in ruins. Im so upset over it.
 
We're not having much luck. The blame is being passed between Dry-Cleaner, the shop dress was bought in and the maker of the Dress.

It's very hard to prove fault. What does the dry cleaning process actually involve? Some of the damage would seem to have come from physical handling rather than chemicals.
 
The dry cleaner explained it to me today. She said there are 9 dials on a dry cleaning machine. The tag indicates the type of chemical that can be used on the dress. She said a wedding dress must use the chemical indicted, the dress should be put into the machine on it's own and inside out. After that I think it's steamed instead of ironed.

Mine is so badly damaged I don't know what it's from. I told the dress shop that its very easy for them to keep pointing the finger. I think I may end up taking legal action im so annoyed.
 
Hi CliFitz

I would ask them what chemical was used?

I agree with going to the small claims court.

Hizzy
 
An old family friend used to run a dry cleaners and i remember him saying one.that they used to wash dry cleaning items on a cold wash,then press the item :O .i couldnt believe it. i left my daughters communion dress in laast week dry clean only it said,the cleaners said no because of the material,didnt want to be responsible if anything happened.so i took it home and spot cleaned it.

i would go back to the cleaners and ask them to write down the name of the chemicals used to clean your dress.then get some legal advise.i wouldnt let them away with it.
 
When it comes to wedding dresses , you don't bring them to a standard dry cleaners.
Unfortunately most of them can't see beyond nine dials as that would exert their brains too much.
CliFitz said:
The dry cleaner explained it to me today. She said there are 9 dials on a dry cleaning machine. l
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This is a specialist area. Wedding dresses are quite often cleaned by hand. The ones I recommend all require the customer to sign a disclaimer.
Were you asked to sign one ? How frequently do they clean wedding dresses ?
 
She didn't ask me to sign anything but she did say from now on she is going to. They do wedding dresses all the time. I saw a few when I dropped it in and she told me she had 3 more to do.

I was going to get my dress checked by a quality assessors, does anyone know of any company that does this?
 
QED said:
We're not having much luck. The blame is being passed between Dry-Cleaner, the shop dress was bought in and the maker of the Dress.

Since you purchased the dress from a shop i dont think you can go to the maker of the dress. Yes they can blame them, but i think thats just a way of getting out of it. I was taking back an item i bought last week and another lady was returning a top. She said she had followed the washing instruction as it said on the label but the colour had run, you could clearly see this. She was given a refund there and then. Now this top would of cost maybe €50, a bit difference to a wedding dress, but the same principle.

It's very hard to prove fault. What does the dry cleaning process actually involve? Some of the damage would seem to have come from physical handling rather than chemicals.

It may be difficult to prove fault but thats not your concern really by what you said it seems to be a bit of both. I would approach both the shop and the dry cleaners and ask for them each to pay half. From the dry cleaners view they know wedding dresses can be difficult they decided to take it on with out getting you to sign anything to say " they are not responsible of the outcome" if they had of said to you that they wern't sure what would happen and got you to sign something and you still decided to go ahead, then that would of put then in the clear, but they didn't do this. Then they can argue the label with the makers of the dress, if they wish. Same with the shop that sold it to you, It was a faulty product since the cleaning instructions were incorrect, so the shop should be able to get a refund from the makers. Either way you shouldn't be out of pocket over this, what ever happened it wasn't your fault.

Approach them with the suggestion i made if they dont go for it then go to the small claims court and claim against both of them at the same time. Let them argue it out as to who's at fault.
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