Pressure is an every day occurrence for John Mahdessian and his New York couture
cleaning company, Madame Paulette.
Of course, it’s not just any pressure. Usually, it can be relatively intense since the
business is often charged with the task of restoring or cleaning an invaluable
item, both in terms of financial and emotional attachment.
Taking it one step further, most of those customers trusting John with their
prized possessions are powerful businessmen, political leaders and beloved
celebrities.
It’s certainly not a career
for the faint of heart.
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“I checked my database,” John said. “I’ve got 45 billionaires as clients. It’s not just New York. It’s nationwide. Then, it ripples down to the multi-, multi-millionaires. Their
image is a reflection of who they are.”
John helps maintain that image. He describes his services by using an analogy of
a person diagnosed with serious health problems who must see a surgical
specialist.
“If you’re smart, you ask him how many times has he done the procedure,” he noted. “Maybe he tells you 15. And, if you’re really smart, you’ll ask him how many times he’s been successful. Then, he tells you 10. With 10 out of 15, you’re wondering whether you’ll be 11 out of 16, or 10 out of 16. Those are the kinds of odds where, when it
comes to your life or livelihood or something that’s really important to you, you don’t want to gamble.”
Most of Madame Paulette’s clientele prefer not to take that risk. With a customer base that includes Tom
Hanks, Rita Wilson, Barbara Walters, Eva Longoria, Rudy Giuliani, Meryl Streep,
Bette Midler, Sting and many other rich and powerful personalities, the
garments on the operating table tend to be extremely expensive.
Case in point, in January of 2005, Madame Paulette was hired by Donald Trump and
then bride-to-be Melanie Knauss to preserve and care for her $200,000 Christian
Dior wedding gown.
In order to properly protect the dress, a whole team was required. Fortunately,
Madame Paulette boasts a Touring Division that can travel anywhere in the world
in order to provide all of the same services that the company offers in-house.
The wedding dress, however, was anything but typical. It weighed 55 pounds,
contained about 300 feet of satin and featured approximately 500 pleats.
Originally, it was packaged in a crate too large to even fit on Trump’s private Boeing 737 jet.
“We had to take it out and repackage it in a way that we had to cover and protect
the pleats so they wouldn’t get all messed up, cover each glass embellishment so it wouldn’t scratch the silk satin, and pack it in a mummy waterproof-but-breathable
wrapping type,” John explained.
Then, he and Madame Paulette staffers — a spotter, presser and tailor — accompanied the garment every step of the way. In fact, John even escorted the
bride to the top of the aisle.
“We do very cool things for very cool people,” John said. “That’s what we do it for... to make a difference. When people think there is no hope,
there is hope.”
Hope was the last word that came to mind when one customer brought in a
collection of Pierre Balmain couture pieces that were supposed to be displayed
in a museum. Before they were shipped to the museum, a water pipe broke,
causing a flood to cause unspeakable damage on the 200-piece set.
“All the colors bled and mildew started growing,” John recalled. “Each piece could have four different colored fabrics, or just exotic prints and
colors and different fabric panels and compositions. Instead of leaving them to
hang out to dry, they put them all in a garbage bag, wet, and shipped them to
me and said, ‘Please, is there anything you can save because this is a tragedy.’ When I opened up the bag, it reminded me of a lot of stuff we got from New
Orleans.”
John promised to do his best, but advised the customer to consider it a lost
cause. He subsequently spent every night after work for the next six months
analyzing the garments in a scientific, C.S.I.-type fashion.
“Every single different piece of fabric that had a different composition, I had
to take an approach in a surgical manner,” he said. “I’ll tell you what, I probably restored 190 pieces. They were thrilled.”
Working hard to earn a spotless reputation is a quality that has been in the
Mahdessian family for three generations.
Madame Paulette, which is over a half of a century old, was originally named
after a finicky family member.
“When my dad came over here from Cyprus with his mother and his sister, he went
to NYU at night and worked at his uncle’s store — Madame Paulette,” John explained. “His uncle’s wife was French and her name was Paulette and she was very particular about
her cleaning.”
Noubar Mahdessian attended NYU with aspirations of being an accountant, but he
gave up on his original dream so that he could help the family business. A few
years later, he purchased the company for his own.
“He actually had a fire and lost everything,” John said. “Instead of the typical going Chapter 11, he stayed there steadfast and paid
everybody back with credit and money over the next five years. I have to give a
lot of credit to him for building that base, and just building that work ethic.”
As John came of age, drycleaning held no interest for him. After playing
Division I Lacrosse and earning a degree in Business Administration from
Villanova University, he was primed for an investment banking job on Wall
Street.
On a lark, he decided to give his father some much-needed help for the summer.
That swayed him to pursue a career in the drycleaning industry.
“I just couldn’t see him doing what he was doing for the next 15 years while I was doing my
career,” he said.
It has been over two decades since John first took over the reins, and Madame
Paulette has never ceased aiming for perfection.
The company has been touted as the best couture cleaner around by fashion
publications such as Vogue, In Style, Esquire and The New York Times.
“We have earned the reputation of being America’s best, hands down,” John said. “We consistently raise our standards. We still look for ways to improve. Our
biggest challenge is that we deal with the most unserviceable pieces in the
world.”
One such piece was an original baseball outfit that belonged to Yankee legend
Joe DiMaggio. It was found in a mildewy basement, covered in stains.
“If you picked it up, you’d want to keep it ten feet away from your face,” John laughed. “Sotheby’s got it from a sports memorabilia company and said, ‘What can we do?’ They valued it at about $50,000 to $70,000 in terrible condition. They gave it
to me. I fully restored it, testing everything... pH, chlorides, everything
else. When I finished restoring it, it looked so good that they got $450,000
for it.”
“These are things that I don’t know anyone else who can do it at that level on a consistent basis,” he added. “We do over 50 to 75 percent of our cleaning in an unconventional way.”
While John does not want to divulge all of his cleaning secrets, he is more than
happy to share a few with the public.
His company’s stellar reputation has garnered him many invitations to posh weddings and
black-tie gala events, and yet John inevitably ends up back on the clock. More
than once, he has employed his emergency stain removal services to thwart
potential fashion disasters.
Nobody can prevent unexpected spills, but the inevitability of such incidents
gave John a novel idea.
“I have invented a professional stain removal kit that has three formulas — the three different stain groups. One for earth-based, one for protein-based,
and any kind of oil matter is the third product,” he explained.
“Time is the most important factor,” he added. “The kit has three absorbing cloths that you put underneath the stain area. You
take out the formula that works effectively on the stain group. You tamp it. It
actually breaks down the composition of the stain instead of bleaching it out
like an OxyClean.”
The kit also comes with distilled water so the remaining particles can be rinsed
without leaving a ring or a yellow mark from irons and minerals.
“I’ve been selling this thing to the bridal market,” he said. “I’ve been selling it to Five-Star hotels to put in their rooms. I’m selling it to retailers now.”
Back in the days when John had his sights set on Wall Street, he could not see
the intrinsic value or appeal of being a drycleaner.
“It’s a very difficult business,” he said. “There’s so many rules and regulations. There’s so many different changing fabrics. There’s so many variables. There are clients who expect Madame Paulette service from a
$10 suit cleaner. No one is very happy. They only have bad things to say. It’s a rough industry.”
Over time, however, the media has certainly touted the appeal of Madame Paulette’s impressive track record when it comes to restoring expensive and special
garments that were previously written off.
“It’s just nice that somebody has brought a status to the industry where it’s almost like a celebrity status,” he said. “There is somebody in the industry who is respected as their top surgeon, their
top doctor — the very, very best in the world. That’s worth it in itself.”
