Santa Claus needs a new dry cleaner

August 24, 2015 9:09 AM

I know it's early to post this, but I need to find a new dry cleaner in Northern Virginia, preferably Alexandria or Fairfax, who can do a good job cleaning a Santa suit.

I need a new cleaner because my OLD cleaner screwed up badly --- as in, when they gave me back my suit the white fur trim was partly pink from the red from the body of the suit running into the trim, and that trim was also all clumped (it looked more like ancient '70s-style shag carpeting than nice soft fur). Yes, that's all over and done with, and I have a nice brand-new suit for this year; but I'd like to find a cleaner in advance so I could maybe take in a few lesser items and sort of test them out, before I trust them with my Santa suit.

The suit is 100% polyester fake fur with a nylon liner; and while I'm purely an amateur Santa (never have and never will do it for pay) I don't want to look like something the cat dragged in. Mine certainly isn't one of the bespoke suits the major-mall Santas wear --- did you know the real pros can go through two $4K-$5K suits a season?!? yikes! --- but it's a pretty decent one, and I want to keep it looking nice.

posted by easily confused to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (1 answer total)

I'd call the fanciest costume rental shops in the area and ask them who does their cleaning, or even if they can contract out that sort of thing for you. You don't need the standard sort of "good dry cleaner" here, but somebody who does costumes regularly, I think. (And when I once looked into costume rental while in DC, I was amazed by how big the fancy costume rental market there was...)
posted by kmennie at 11:10 AM on August 24, 2015