National Clothesline

We have examined several kinds of conditions of use that occur as suede and leather garments and accessories are worn.

These conditions of use are the result of wear and tear damage caused by the customer. You could also think of it as conditions of abuse of the garment.

Now we will examine conditions of manufacture. These are things the manufacturer of the garment did that can present you with a potential problem in accepting, handling and processing suede and leather garments and accessories.

Conditions of manufacture can occur in the tannery, where the skins are tanned and colored or in the garment manufacturing factory, where the skins are cut into panels and sewn together to make garments or accessory items.

Let’s begin our study at the beginning, which is at the tannery, where the skins of animals are received as a by-product from the slaughter house, to be tanned so they will no longer be subject to rotting. Here the skins are sueded, dyed and painted to create suede, Nu Buck reverse suede, naked leather, cuir savage leather and painted leather, suitable for making garments and accessory items.

One thing that occurs in the tanning process is the buffing or suedeing of the skins. Suede is characterized by a surface nap or the velvet-like surface. This nap is created as part of the tanning process.

Normally the flesh side of the skin is sueded, although the surface of the skin (the smooth side) that is the side of the skin from which the hair was removed, may also be sueded to form a reverse suede called Nu Buck.

The suede nap is raised on the skin by passing it through a machine that has a wide roller like wheel with an abrasive surface similar to sand paper, sand cloth or pumice. As the skin passes beneath this roller the abrasive surface contacts the surface of the skin and plucks up the surface to form a nap or the velvet-like surface we call suede.

As the suedeing process proceeds, some small pieces of the surface of the skin are pulled loose to form a suede dust or lint. This suede dust or lint remains on the surface of the suede.

Other small pieces of skin are left hanging by a small strand. The loose suede lint is then removed from the surface of the skin by passing it through a dust removal vacuum unit that is intended to vacuum clean the loose lint from the surface of the skin.

However, all of the lint is not always removed from the surface of the skin. The result is that the loose lint will come off of the suede during the time it is worn and will be deposited onto the other articles of clothing being worn with the suede.

The loose lint will also come off the surface of the suede during cleaning. If you are not cleaning suede or leather this will not be a problem to you.

If you are cleaning suede and leather you will want to make a provision to capture and screen out this lint. This procedure will be discussed later in much more detail.

So what about suede lint coming off onto other articles of clothing? Well, the customer may ask you what you can do about it.

There is something you can do and make some money doing it. You can take the garment in for de-linting. It will usually be a relatively new article, so it won’t require cleaning. It just needs de-linting.

How to do it? One way is to use a clean hand vacuum cleaner machine equipped with an upholstery tool and vacuum off the excess suede lint.

Another way is to tumble the suede in your clean and cool reclaimer or dry-to-dry drycleaning machine on the aerate cycle. Remember, tumble it cool! A clean, cool laundry dryer may also be used with no heat.

Just the tumbling action and cool air flow will de-lint the suede and the customer will be pleased to pay you a reasonable fee for doing it.

Another condition of manufacture is called skive marks. These are usually rather large, often oval shaped, discolored, mottled blotches found on the back side or underside of a leather garment.

This condition can go unnoticed if the person accepting the garment is not trained to look for it because the condition is normally concealed by the lining of the garment.

Why should the drycleaner care what the skin looks like on the back side when there is a lining covering it?

The skive marks become a problem when three factors exist: First, the lining is a loose lining which is not sewn in at the hem line.

Second, you do not look under the loose lining with the customer there before the item is accepted for cleaning.

Third, the customer raises the lining after you have cleaned it. Now the customer sees for the first time — with horror — the unsightly and very obvious mottled, discolored blotches on the back side of their very favorite, brand new, beautiful, expensive suede or leather garment — the garment that they think you have ruined because you somehow put all those ugly, unsightly blotches on it.

Sure, you can explain it away. You can tell the customer that the blotches were there all the time. They were there when the garment was purchased. They got there at the tannery. They are the result of the tannery shaving off the underside of the skin to make the thickness of the skin more uniform because it varies in thickness from one part of the skin to anther as it comes from the animal.

You can tell the customer that the tannery did this shaving or skiving process to give the skin a better feel.

The skiving was done after the skin was dyed and, for that reason, a portion of the skin and the dye was removed causing this condition to exist on nearly all fine suede and leather skins. The condition does not normally affect the garments outward appearance or wearability.

If you tell the customer all of that, you will be telling it like it is. But you’re doing it all after the fact and you know it’s a lot easier to explain it before the fact.

So the way to handle it properly is for the counter person to raise up the lining and show the customer that the skive marks are there before they leave the garment for cleaning. Then these skive mark blotches can be explained before the garment is cleaned and there will be no doubt in the customer’s mind as to whether or not you put the blotches there or that you did anything to harm their fine suede or leather garment. Instead, you will have enhanced your professional image with the customer by displaying your detailed knowledge about this “highly specialized” area of leather cleaning and by imparting new and interesting information to a valued customer.