You wouldn’t trust your luxury car to the neighborhood mechanic. So why send your couture apparel to the corner cleaner?
Couture is the specialty of Rey’s Cleaners, says Frankie Suarez, head of sales for the 25-year-old family-run business. “It’s our core business,” he says. “We’ve been developing relationships with couturiers for several years now. We service gowns that belong to couture boutiques as well as to their clients.”
For example, Rey’s recently restored a $25,000 gown belonging to a high-end boutique.
“Although it was a brand new, it was very delicate, with glass crystals and signature beading,” says Angel D. Suarez, head of production. “We had to work by hand, from cleaning to pressing and finishing touches. We enclosed ourselves in a dark room and used UV light to detect stains not visible to the naked eye. We found some wine stains we were able to remove by very light feathering and minimum mechanical action.”
America’s Best Cleaners has selected Rey’s Cleaners the best in Miami - a designation that’s backed by a rigorous accreditation process that includes excellence in fabric and stain identification, garment construction and color fastness. Every garment must be expertly finished and pressed. Only 27 companies in the country are so accredited.
As an affiliate of America’s Best network, Frankie Suarez says, Rey’s must “offer high-end dry cleaning for couture items, wet-cleaning capability and expert alterations. It involves walk-throughs every year. It’s very comprehensive.”
Maintaining Rey’s status with America’s Best Cleaners also means constant instruction. For example, next month some of Rey’s Cleaners staff are headed to Los Angeles for a course in the latest wet-cleaning techniques.
America’s Best Cleaners is affiliated with the Hohenstein Institutes in Germany, the world’s foremost garment laboratory, where couturiers send their creations for testing and analysis on how they should be serviced.