1920s Flapper Dress? Cleaning Options???

EndlessAlley

EndlessAlley

Alumni
This is a sweet, but very stained, dress. The fabric is strong and in great shape. I'm hoping there is some way to give it a new life.

I believe the fabric is a silk velvet. There are quite a few stains including under the arms, so the entire dress needs treated. Is there something I can soak this in like Folex? or take it to a good cleaners? or is dyeing the dress the only option?

Thanks for sharing your experiences as to what has worked for you and what has not.

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Just by coincidence, I just recently took a chance and actually washed a panne velvet 1930s dress which was black with a floral print. I did in my new steam washing machine on the handwash cycle.
Mine did not have stains but did have some odors, it came out beautifully.

With those serious stains I can see at the underarm I'm not sure what to say to you...also you have that lovely lace inserting which could be fragile as well.

I'm not sure what to advise you in this case as that is very bad staining...if you did not pay much for the dress I would say go ahead and try the folex and if that doesn't work, dying it black might
be a good idea in this case.

I'm sure others will come in with some advice for you here.
 
I haven't tried washing silk velvet, I wouldn't normally recommend it but you're going to have a lot of trouble selling it with those terrible stains so (assuming you didn't pay much for it) you don't really have anything to lose. I would try a gentle hand wash in luke warm water and see if that budges any of the marks. If it survives that okay, you could consider soaking it. I'd be worried about the lace too, I've destroyed more than one '20s lace dress through washing, mistakenly thinking it was strong enough to cope.

I don't recommend dyeing as the stains are likely to show through: they're very bad.
 
Thanks Nicole. I've not tried dyeing a garment before, but was wondering about it "taking differently" where the stains are. Little money was involved in obtaining this dress, so I'll give it a try. I'll do a follow-up post if it works... and if not, I'll simply bury it in the back yard!:oops:
 
Plus, dyeing is a pain. The only way that I know to get a very effective and rich sye job is to do it in boiling water and well, if it isnt strong enough for agressive cleaning, something about boiling water scares me.
 
My book, "How to Clean Everything," recommends for perspiration stains sponging with detergent and warm water, and on old stains, vinegar, then rinsing with warm water. It also says to try cleaning fluid, then hydrogen peroxide for any remaining stains. It says that cleaning fluid alone won't work on such stains--they need to be dissolved with water. So, it sounds like a multi-step process, but worth trying. Good luck!
 
Totally agree with you, Jennifer. If a garment isn't strong enough to be washed, it certainly isn't strong enough to be dyed. If you don't boil it in RIT dye, but instead tailor your dye choice for the specific fiber, you can sometimes have success with using "cold" water. But even then you need to use either a slightly acidic (for silk) or slightly alkaline (for cotton, rayon) dye bath and it still works best if you use the hottest tap water you can get, not actually "cold". And, on top of that, if you want the dye to take evenly, you should really wash it thoroughly first. So yeah, lots of washing!

Also, I find dyeing often doesn't make stains disappear - they still show, just in a different colour.

Looking forward to seeing the results - good luck!

Jen
 
I can actually see this dress getting upcycled, if you cannot get rid of those bad stains...that is only if there are not any other bad ones throughout the rest of the dress.

If you were to cut the dress just below the underarm stains and then make spaghetti straps from the lace at the arms. You could also salvage the lace at the neckline and
put that at the top of the bodice. The dress appears to be quite long, so it would still be a decent length after cutting this completely away.

I do see one spot further down on the dress but by cutting it, that stain would most likely end more at the hipline area and perhaps a pretty millinery flower could be sewn
onto that spot to camouflage the stain.
 
Mary Jane, I love that idea, especially since it now looks like the underarm stains, though much lighter, are not going away. I will probably try attacking it one more time tomorrow before admitting defeat. Now to find some creative soul who loves to upcycle!
 
I just feel when a vintage item is this pretty and there is a major issue, it's a shame to just discard it...as far as I'm concerned this is when upcycling is definitely a good thing. Otherwise, I prefer to keep my vintage as is and not change anything about it!
Do let us know what you end up doing with it!
 
I wonder if it might be "upcycled" by keeping its existing bodice and cutting new, very deep armholes front and back--and keeping as much of the original neckline as possible--and fashioning a matching undergarment that is meant to show? You'd end up with something that looks almost like a jumper, and would make or find a blouse or camisole to go under it. Or maybe cut out the armholes and use a matching or complementary lace to create wide insets or bands, so that you wouldn't need to wear something under it. Hard to describe, but I can envision what I mean.

I'd hate to see the top of the bodice just lopped off if there's another way to re-fashion it.
 
Here is my upcycling idea I wanted to share to see if you thought it would fit into the character of the period. Under the dress is a 3" salvage (hope that's the correct term) of fabric. It appears to be extra length from the main body of the dress that the first ruffle is sewn onto. I was thinking of removing the extra material and use it to create strips across the bodice to repeat the strips on the bottom. Each strip could be attached only at top to create a ruffled bodice look or each strip could be attached at both top and bottom. It would break up the long line and add a subtle extra to the bodice. Biggest concern is it would be too bulky of look or simply out of character for the period. Hope you will overlook the awkward drawing.

Thanks for sharing your opinions.

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I think the dress would be easily recreated as is in the following manner: Since the dress is made up of two velvet panels in the front (and either 1 or two in the back), why not just remove the velvet from the arm and neckline lace in bodice area (front and back), cut directly across removing the stained area and re-affix to the neckline and sleeve lace. It will result in the exact same dress but a bit shorter. At this time you can do as suggested above and affix a millinery flower at the hip stain.
 
I like your idea Amber of re-cutting the bodice thus shortening the dress. The fabric in the underarm stain area is much more fragile than the rest of the dress. Shortening would eliminate that concern. Thank you.
 
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