One of my latest vintage finds is this adorable striped dress. [/url][/img] I think 60's, but what would you say? Now this dress fits perfectly and is very cute. There is just one problem...IT IS FULL OF LITTLE RED FLAKES Here they are... It appears to be the thread at the seams that is doing this. [/url][/img] Here is the label: [/url][/img] Does anyone have any ideas on this? Any ways to fix it? Has anyone encountered anything like this? I'm very much at a loss of what to do here. Any suggestions would be very appreciated!!!! Thank you!!!! p.s. sorry about the image size. I'm very new to the whole photobucket thing.;)
It's called "Devil Dust" and I'm afraid your dress is a loss. See that foam backing on the fabric? It's breaking down and the red powder is from that. Please be very careful, as you don't want to inhale any of this stuff. I would wrap the dress up carefully and discard it. Others may have a different solution, but I alway treat this as a health hazard. It's too bad, cause that is a really cute 60's dress. It alway breaks my heart when I find an article of clothing with this problem. I've seen it in dresses, coats, and even the lining of boots.
This is making me wonder...how hazardous is it?:( I've tried it on a couple of times and I'm now wondering if I'm going to get some horrible disease. I always seem to find the most "UNIQUE" vintage
I don't think you'll come down with a debilitating disease, or even a skin rash. You'll just probably find that darned red dust for days to come!
Those nice foam hanger covers that keep garments from sliding off will disintegrate and flake off on the insides of the garments. Claire
i had a suit which this happened to.......it looked like the glue or resin at the back of the fabric was drying out and went to 'dust' i have also got a blue dress with the top half white with blue spots.... and a matching sleeveless blue fabric jacket..... and a matching hat from the late 60's early 70's and the inside of the jacket is sticky and starting to 'flake off' onto the dress..... so unless i come up with a solution ( not holding breath) this will have to go to the big rag bag in the sky....
Thanks for the suggestions. This is tragic considering how much i love this dress. From what I've read online it seems to be 60's stuff that does this. I don't think it's from a hanger because it is FULL of flakes. When you shake it a very large red flaky cloud engulfs you (disgusting). Well, when I get home today I'm going to majorly shop vac the thing out. Then I'm going to examine it more closely, it almost seems more like the thread is flaking off rather than the fabric. I'm wondering if there's some way i can cover it. But I'm not really much of a seamstress and I doubt that it's possible. But for right now It's going to stay in the basement where all the vintage that is extremely dirty lives.
That is a super cute dress. What a shame. I agree mostly with Jody - I think it's a goner. But I do vaguely remember someone here mentioning that they've had luck with a good vacuuming. I think that might help with items that have finished their disenigrating.
Great dress! Unfortunately, it definitely sounds like "devil dust". Some vintage fabrics that were bonded have this problem. If you look closely at a raw edge, the fabric is in two layers. The red dusty stuff is the bonding agent and is disintegrating between the two layers. Best of luck trying to get rid of it. I have tried everything imagineable without luck. If you do come up with a solution - please let us know!!!! Diane
Vacuuming - really? I'll have to give it a try on a few new old stock items I have kept just in case someone found a cure. Diane
Being that my dad is a contractor we have a couple of powerful shopvacs around that he uses on sawdust. HOPEFULLY this will make a difference. I hope the dust is done disintegrating, considering how much it already has there can't be much more bonding agent left.
I had a a dress that looked fine, tossed it in the dryer to fluff and freshen, it was NWT (new with tags, old stock) so I didn't want to wash and loose the tags. I opened the dryer a half hour later and found that it hadn't "fluffed" it had exploded devil dust all over my dryer! That was way over a year ago, and there's still devil dust lingering in the corners of my dryer door. It's horrible, but, yeah, I've never washed the stuff out successfully. It's bonded glue used in the fabric. Bastards!!
I BELIEVE the stuff that is turning to powder has a foam rubber base. I doubt it is a toxic substance but certainly it's not something you want in your lungs like Jody said. Don't breath it (any more than you want to breath any foriegn substance into your lungs). However, don't give up on the dress yet. I have put some of these dresses in my washing machine (what do you have to loose) and find there is a 50/50 chance of saving them. I go outside and cover my face with a cloth, hold the garment away from me and shake out as much as I can. I then wash it inside out on gentle. Air dry the dress if it makes it and give it a good press on the wrong side. The red powder from the backing should wash clean away but the dress may not make it. I've been doing this for years, it works especially well on double knits where the fusable backing is disintegrating. The fabric comes out more limp of course but that is not always a problem. I always run the washing machine afterwards to rinse out any residue. I have also had a couple of really nice double knit wool dresses from the 60s which were having this problem. They were such nice dresses that I took them to the cleaners and they cleaned them for me. Both times the dresses came out fine. Melody
Unfortunately this story is all too common - as common as ( ) dust... Case #34,652: I found this jacket a couple of months ago. Cute, no? I gave it a good once-over, inside and out, and - because I'm quite familiar with Satan's Shavings :P , which would be none too surprising to find with this 'crushed faux fur' fabric - ran a hand up under the lining. Nothing seemed to be seriously amiss ... Anyway it was sharing a room with too many moth-ravaged things. Despite its being made of 100% synthetic material which is unappealing to the moth palate & in fact showing no damage of the moth kind - there was no way I was letting it in to the "general population" of my stock (or my house for that matter) without taking some precautions. So before bringing it inside I shook it out, folded/rolled & sealed it in a XL zip lock bag (isn't it wonderful that they're making them in XL XXL, etc. now?) and did the freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw thing - shaking it out during the 'thaws' - that's supposed to kill any lingering moth larvae. Which there probably were none to begin with anyway. It wasn't until after photographing it - when I was taking it off of the mannequin - that I felt a bit of that grittiness on my fingers... the Dust of Death :( Oh no, I thought -- it can't be! I grabbed the hem, and - there it is, plain as day, looking like fine, reddish-brown clay. It must've been the freezing/thawing because I swear, it was NOT there before. What's really killing me is all that wasted time, all that wasted freezer space... Next appliance to be dragged into this sorry story: the vacumn. Why not?! Although I'm sorry for everyone's losses to this ghastly stuff, I'm so glad to have gotten this off my chest! Carolyn
I call it "bio-hazard" but I haven't as negative a prognosis. When I find a great garment with this problem I have it dry cleaned and my careful dry cleaner returns it without any residue. Of course, it is missing this ingredient in the fabric, but it is usually still okay by me. I always disclose this in an auction. I remember reading about this junk being restored in an important Mary Quant piece for a museum. Can you believe they actually can make it right again?
