Eight Reasons You Should Take Better Care of Your Clothing

Why Your Dry Cleaner Could Be Your New BFF

This is the first in a series of posts about clothing care

 and how to make your clothes last longer.

Doing Laundry in India
Photo courtesy of abrinsky

Eight reasons why you should take good care of your clothes:

1. Protect your investment in terms of cost and shopping time

2. You love it

3. It’s one of a kind or hard to find

4. You look fabulous in it

5. It represents a memory

6. It’s collectible, or an iconic silhouette or designer

7. You wear a special size: plus, tall or petite

8. You pay to have your clothes altered

Your clothes are your identity and often, after you’ve spent hours on the hunt for just the right must-have, you’ve got an investment in time and money. Add what could be a hefty price tag for a fabulous silk T-shirt or pair of premium denim jeans, and you’re talking about a sizable sum. So what "don’t" you do when it’s time to care for your clothes?

My mother was diligent in her insistence that I learn how to care for my clothes. She rotated our seasonal wardrobes like clockwork, washed and blocked the wool by hand and held captive anything I left in a pile on the floor. Ironing is a lost art, even I don’t own one anymore, and I’ve got first hand knowledge that not everyone is conscientious about sorting colors and using the delicate cycle.

Knowing how to care for clothing and natural fibers paid off when I worked as a fashion stylist. My two worst experiences with potentially ruined, one of a kind pieces was on the sets of commercials. Had I not been armed and dangerous with the knowledge of what to do, it's possible I could have blown my career with two mishaps.

A good dry cleaners can take a load off, not only with the convenient services they offer, like having a tailor on duty, but especially for their knowledge of fabrics and various methods for cleaning and stain removal.

If you’ve ever had a bad experience with a dry cleaner, it’s likely the real culprit of any damage was the care label itself. A care label may offer information on how to clean the outer shell of a garment, but overlook mentioning the lining is made from a non-stable fiber, one that hasn’t been preshrunk, for example.



Care Label Guide Courtesy of The Soap and Detergent Association

Many fashionable fabrications and treatments developed for garments make them more difficult to clean, like premium denim. According to Robert Shapiro, General Manager at Milt & Edie’s Dry Cleaners in Burbank, California, “Premium denim jeans have a lot of different washes, embellishments and coatings, like wax. Waxed cotton requires specific care. Soap dissolves the waxed coating, which doesn’t hold up during the dry cleaning process either,” Shapiro said with a sigh. “When we see waxed cotton, we steam clean the item. We do a lot of business with the movie and TV studios, they trust us. And we never stopped cleaning by hand, we’ve always provided hand-processing services, especially for couture and vintage garments.”

A care label can be misleading and label enforcement is almost nonexistent.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) oversees compliance of the care labeling rule, which required manufacturers and importers to attach care instructions to garments. According to the FTC Website, over the last 22 years, they have only brought 16 enforcement actions.

What You Need to Know
The four most important steps you can do to ensure the longevity and wearability of your favorite things.

1. Inspect your clothes thoroughly after wearing to note any spots, spills or stains. Spot cleaning can often prevent a permanent stain. If you don't know how to spot clean, take the garment to your cleaners as soon as possible. Don’t hang it back in your closet, where it will be forgotten and the spot has time to set.

2. Inspect your things before you leave them with a dry cleaner, in order to identify possible stains and spills. Have a conversation with the manager of the dry cleaners if your garment has any of these features to make sure they have experience with this type of clothing: quilted, has a coating or special treatment, a lining, embellishments like sequins, is made of a synthetic leather or leather.

3. Look for and read the care labels in your clothes and point any specific instructions out to the dry cleaners. For example, some labels may say a certain dry cleaning chemical cannot be tolerated.

4. Be sure to make a point your garment is vintage or couture. Most vintage clothing, made before the seventies, was constructed out of natural fibers, but as such, these items are older and the fibers are weaker. If your garment hasn’t been stored or cared for properly, the dry cleaner may be able make the best decision in how to clean the garment.


Find a good dry cleaner on the Dry Cleaning & Laundry Institute website.

Milt and Edie's Drycleaners are in Burbank, California, around the corner from Warner Brothers, Disney and Universal Studios.

Vintage Vixen Reviews Affordable Couture: A New Fashion Book

Vintage Vixen has a really cool blog and she reviewed the new fashion book I wrote with Jemi Armstrong,
"Affordable Couture: A Guide to Buying and Collecting Couture."
I'm really happy Vintage Vixen liked the book and shared it with her readers.
It's the perfect gift for anyone who loves runway fashion and wants to know how to become a fashion insider.

Illustration by Jemi Armstrong,  co-author "Affordable Couture."

Affordable Couture is full of Jemi's fabulous fashion illustrations and an international directory of the best places to pay less for couture, vintage couture, high-end designer and vintage clothing in six cities.
Here's a link to her review: Vintage Vixen: Let's Go To Bed (Plus a Giveaway)

Gucci's Fat Sister: PPR, Parent Company of Gucci, Also Owns OneStopPlus

Photo of Gucci Outlet Store Courtesy of Premium Outlet Malls

It's a small world, even if you wear a larger size. If you don't read the business pages, you might not know that PPR, the parent company of Gucci, owns OneStopPlus, a popular online shopping mall.  
Francois-Henri Pinault, head of PPR, is the same  man who is married to Selma Hayek but has a love child with supermodel Linda Evangelista.  

Why I Love Shahs of Sunset

Photo of Asa courtesy of Bravo TV

I love the reality TV show Shahs of Sunset. It's true and here's why. Reality TV has opened the floodgates for diversity. Whether we like or dislike, approve or disapprove, Reality TV is a showcase for real people. And that means real women. Women with curves and all that goes with them.

In the first two episodes we saw mean girls and gayness, with an extravagance towards livin' the life.
Aren't there mean girls and gay guys everywhere? Don't you know some chicks that bitch and whine about everything? Don't most of us have a swishy pal to dish the dirt with? Don't most of us succumb at one time or another to the "I want I Gotta Haves" over something fashion related?

The Iranian community is up in arms over what they feel is an innacurate portrayal of their culture.
But is there really a cultural divide when one is young, rich and living in Beverly Hills?

I don't watch the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but I bet that there's a bit of bitchiness and showing off, albeit in perhaps a less obnoxious manner, they're older after all.
The RHBH live in grandeur, wear expensive, designer clothes and live La Dolce Vita. And just as the RHBH are real women, they are more like cookie cutter cut outs, more Stepford Wife than Real Life.


And then there are Asa and MJ, two of the females on Shahs of Sunset. Two completely different creatures, one short in stature and the other statuesque. One with an overbearing Persian mother, another a "gypsy" with a boho lifestyle. These two female characters have figures that are buxom, curvaceous, full, lush, voluptuous, well-rounded and zaftig, just to list a few synonyms for hot and curvy!
Whether you like the show or not, the cast's escapades are food for fodder, tweets for Twitter and a raison d'être for the Persian expat community.
Read more about the two, enterprising, curvy cast members.
Asa Soltan Rahmati and Mercedes "MJ" Javid

What Size Am I And Does It Matter?

If you live in the United States, no matter how old you are, you have probably seen a TV episode of I Love Lucy. Lucy was played by Lucille Ball, a talented actress and wonderful comedian.

In the show, she played the wife of Desi Arnaz (they were married for a few years in real life too), a Latin band leader. Lucy always wants to "be in showbiz," and the running gag in the story line is her constant pestering to "be in the show."

After one of the showgirls becomes ill, Desi offers Lucy her big chance with the caveat that she has to fit into the showgirl's costume. Can you guess what size the costume was?
The outfit the showgirl wore was a size 12. Yes, that's correct, a 12.
Fast forward to the 21st Century. There are no standard size specifications for women's clothing sizes.
Menswear sizing is still determined and sold by the numbers.
But when plus sized women shop, they are faced with the dilemma that every company has a proprietary size chart and even then, their clothing may not adhere to the chart.
In my closet I have tops that range from an XL to a 22, dresses in missy size 14 to plus 1X.
What does it mean? Nothing, except of course a lot of frustration, since many designers and companies that offer plus size clothing only sell online.
I love shopping online, and take the risk that what I order won't fit and will need to be exchanged or returned, often at my expense.
A recent online purchase ended up costing me twice as much, since the item didn't fit. I know my measurements and had checked the company's size chart before I placed the order. I was disappointed, but sent it back. The company sent back the wrong size and the top was too big! So by the time I received the third top, the cost of shipping actually doubled the cost of the top.
I'd like to say the answer is to know your measurements to prevent this type of problem.
However, knowing your measurements is only half the  equation. You must understand your body type, as well as other details like what necklines, sleeve styles and lengths fit you best.
My neighbor, who weighs at least 35 pounds more than I do, is also five inches shorter than me, yet she wears a smaller bathing suit.
A clothing designer must determine what body type he/she is going to address, which is why a lot of plus size clothing is just so...BIG. It's very hard to dress women, we come in a lot of different shapes, even if we all can wear the same size.
So when you're shopping, don't worry about the size the garment is, choose the garment that fits and looks the best. If an alteration will make the item fit even better, go for it. I know it's an additional expense, especially after you may have paid for postage. But if it fits well and looks great, you'll feel better. And you will wear it. After all, how many things are hanging in your closet that you don't wear?

Adele + Cosmo = Smoking: The New Cosmo Grrrl

While perusing the newsstand, dodging headlines about Kim Kardashian's wedding, I glanced  at Cosmopolitan's December issue. Speaking to all women, no matter what shape or size, Cosmo's cover girl is Adele. Wearing a sexy, bodice hugging leopard print top by Dolce & Gabanna, and staring boldly with her smoldering eyes next to this provocative cover line, "100 Best Sex Tips of The Year," she steals the show.

I'll always be a  Cosmo Girl at heart and it's nice to see a curvy Cosmo Grrrl!

Follow me on Twitter @plussizeblogger.

What I'm Reading Now: The Refresher Course for Plus Size Fashionistas

As high end retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue pull the plus size department from their brick & mortor business, adding to the confusion and frustration of the plus size shopping experience, along comes a fresh update on plus size fashion.
"Keeping it Curvy. Confident. Chic" by Marie Denee, editor in chief of The Curvy Fashionista,®  gives readers a strategy and plenty of encouragement on just how and where to find their curvy style and fit.
Once a stylist, always a stylist; I'm rotating my seasonal clothes this weekend, pulling recurring trends from my archive, and tidying up my closet. I can vouch for all Denee's tips.
Even though magazines like Marie Claire have begun to acknowledge plus size style, this book fills the void, regardless of whether you need to give your wardrobe a complete overhaul or just a seasonal tune-up. A great style guide, "Keeping It Curvy. Confident. Chic" cuts to the chase. You'll find everything you need to know to get dressed NOW and more.
Click here to buy Keeping it Curvy  @plussizeblogger's special price of $6.99.
Follow me on Twitter @plussizeblogger.