Feather on dress reacting to water

Good evening !

I hope this is the right place to post this thread.

I bought yesterday a lovely dress, that I think might be from the 50s or early 60s although I am not sure. I will post full pictures of it later, especially of the label because it is a "Fredericks of Hollywood" dress. But I hope to settle the problem first.

This dress has feathers on it and so I decided to wash it by hand carfuly.

But after I washed the dress, the feather part was shriveled and some parts of it had wrapped in the fabric by itself ! It very slightly improved once the feather was completly dry.

I do not know what to do, I don't even understand how it is possible that the feather part twist by itself. I tried to see what holds them together but I could not see any wire. I think feathers are just tied together.

I tried to stretch it but it doesn't stay straight. But I can strech it so it did not become smaller when I washed it. I also tried to deal with each part that are completly twisted but it does not work either.

When I bought the dress, it had already a small part that was twisted but I did not worry about it.

The dress before I washed it was like that :



Now it is like that :



Close-ups of the left twisted part :



And the back, which used to be straight :



I hope I am clear, because it is very hard to explain.

Do you have any advice ? Did it happen to you before ?

Thank you very much

 

Hello,

While it is difficult to determine what happened , without actually seeing and handling the dress, I can make a good guess. From what I can see, the feathers looks to be marabou. Actually they are faux marabou which are turkey down or some other domestic feathers used to imitate the marabou. These are manufactured and sold by the yard already sewn to a thin/narrow cotton cording. The cording makes it easy to sew the feather "string" to a garment or hat. I cannot tell what the fiber is of the fabric of the dress itself, but it appears to be some sort of chiffon or semi sheer fabric, possibly blend or synthetic. When you washed the dress, the cotton cording shrank but the dress did not. So the cording, when it shrank, caused the hem to buckle and curl, etc.

Unfortunately, I cannot think of a good way to make the dress look like it did before washing.

 

I agree with Barbara. The dress looks like it might be nylon chiffon. If you try local suppliers they should have some similar feather trim so that you can replace the damaged parts.

 

Thank you very much both of you !
I will try to twist the feather part again since it is the best I can do. If it does not work or if I break it, I will buy a new one. Too bad, I wanted the dress to stay as original as possible...

 

I think you may be able to salvage this. I would carefully unpick the stitching that holds the feather trim onto the dress. Let it untwist a little and settle into a straight line. Carefully iron the skirt with a damp cloth covering it on the lowest setting you can. Find the middle of the hem of the overskirt and the middle of the trim, pin in place and continue to pin in on both sides working outwards from this point. You may find the trim's internal cord has shrunk as Barbara mentioned and is no longer the same length. In this case I would re hem the inside opening edges of the overskirt to meet the new end of the trim. If you are not a confident sewer of chiffon this is a job for your seamstress. Kind regards. Melanie.

Next time you decide to clean a feather trimmed dress either remove the trim before wet washing or see if your dry cleaner will take it. They are usually dry clean only and even then they may remove the trim and put it back afterward. I would also advise if getting feathers or feathery trims wet that you dry it using a hairdryer with a diffusser on, on a low setting and brush it as you do, this keeps it fluffy and stops it all clumping together. It does not work with all types of feather however.

 

Thank you very much Melanie ! I will try to do what you said.

 

I had a robe with this kind of feather boa trim attached. I removed the trim very carefully as suggested, cleaned the gown and steamed out the boa pieces. It was a major operation but the item looked really really good, almost worth the work. Next time I'll budget for the dry-cleaning though.

 

Thank you very much to you all ! I followed your advices and it worked ! (after several attempts because the feather trim would not remain straight)

It is perhaps slightly less good than it used to be but it is only because I saw the dress before. I will take pictures of it tomorrow and post it on the forum to see if you can help me date it.