Help! Colour is running on hand wash of 1930s Dress

[Secondhandstillgrand]

Hello everyone!

I recently found a beautiful what I believe to be 30s dress in a charity shop for £25. I'm planning to wear it to my university summer ball on Friday, but it smelt quite musty and was dirty around the bottom, so I decided to give it a hand wash with non-bio delicate detergent.

To my horror, when I started washing it the pink colour was running badly out of the tulle! I haven't rinsed it sufficiently from fear of all of the colour coming out - there's definitely still soap in the tulle. The lining was thankfully fine, no colour running there. It's just the pink tulle running, not the black.

What should I do? Will it be okay to leave the soap in it?

Here is the dress, and it on the line right now (this disaster occured about 15 minutes ago)

Any advice gratefully received!

 

[Pepper Sinclair]

you might want to use a few tablespoons of vinegar in the water to help the colours set or you could have it dry cleaned which might be a bit dodgy. It's beautiful and looks great on you!

 

[Secondhandstillgrand]

Unfortunatly I've noticed that the wash has caused it to develop a few small holes in the tulle, around the black flowers too, I think because the fabric is so delicate :( Definitely a big regret, but I was advised by a costume expert that it would be okay to hand wash! I think it's for the best just to let it dry out now, hopefully it will still look okay on. But thank you for the advice and the compliment, fingers crossed it isn't a huge disaster!

 

[joules]

What a pretty dress, and it looks beautiful on you.

Yes, old net tulle can be delicate, so I'd leave as is for now. Sorry it happened that way.

 

[Pepper Sinclair]

If it smells really musty, one of the things you could do is let it air out outside in the shade, at least that would help with the smell.

 

[Secondhandstillgrand]

Thank you for your advice and support everyone! It has nearly fully dried now, and thankfully the damage seems very minimal, just a few tiny holes which I hope won't get any bigger. Despite the running, the colour looks unchanged. Furthermore is does smell better now, so I guess that's the silver lining But I've definitely learnt my lesson!

 

[poppysvintageclothing]

It looks lovely on you! Hope it works out for your university ball!

 

[Circa Vintage Clothing]

Lovely dress: when you say "net tulle", can you tell if it's made of nylon or cotton? It helps with dating as a nylon will be post WW2, and it does not hold dye well, whilst a '30s cotton or silk tulle will.

I'm sorry that you were ill-advised on the care of the dress. I think it should be dry cleaned only but if I were you, I would very gently wash the soap out, dry flat (put a towel on top and gently absorb the extra water). Once dry, I would see about repairing the tulle. If the holes are near the flowers you should be able to fix without it being too obvious - holes in the tulle away from the flowers I would leave as repairs will be obvious.

 

[joules]

I'm tending to agree with Nicole, if you can manage to very gently rinse with minimal manipulation, in a gingerly manner. Then again, with your event in the near future, perhaps best to leave well enough alone, for now.