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Why don't our dresses shrink after washing?
There was a great customer review the other day, where she was so surprised that the dress didn't shrink at all. It then occurred to us, that we never shared the info on why and how we prevent this!
Why?
Well no one likes their favourite new dress becoming a doll's outfit after being washed!
How?
It is actually quite easy to prevent. We wash all the material twice before it is laid out for cutting against a pattern.
This gets all the shrink out of the way up front! A typical Number 9 Cotton Dress will need 3 metres of fabric. To get those 3 metres we need to pre wash about 3.5 metres. For a typical Number 9 Rayon Dress that needs 3 metres, we need to pre wash about 4.5-5 metres of fabric.
This makes the material costs a bit higher and in the case of Rayon, almost double. The result though is a better product for our customers and a much better experience, as we know you will never be disappointed after you wash the items.......provided you follow our care instructions that we ship with each order.
You do follow the care instructions right? ;-)
Comments
Lisa said:
This little gem of info is so important for me. I’m quite tall, and every single item I’ve ever bought made of rayon has shrunk so much I’ve never been able to wear it again so I stopped buying rayon. That you prewash is critical consumer info! Thanks for sharing.
Richard Ford said:
Thanks Lisa. Yes a few people mentioned the shrinking issue with Rayon (more pronounced than others) and it dawned on us that new have never shared what we do for all our materials.
After our first run was made we found the shrinkage was too much for a design that people were buying for a more fitted form. So we now pre wash twice.
We do these washes after printing too for the added benefit of making sure that only colour fast material is used to make the dresses. It’s a good way to check quality of the printing before we even get to making the dresses. :-)