Wedding dress cleaning

[Dulcinae]

I don't know if this is the right place to post. My daughter would like to wear her grandmother's wedding dress, which is almost 60 years old.

It's made of a heavy damask type material and it's become mottled and discoloured in places. It was an ivory colour originally.

Would it be possible to have it professionally cleaned? If so, where?

I can't post photos, because it is in my mother's house.

Maybe get advice from a local dry cleaners? That’s if they are open at the moment. I got mine dry cleaned and they did a lovely job (got loads of mud off the hem) and packaged it up in a posh box.

I've been googling and there are lots of specialist dry cleaners offering to clean a new dress after the wedding and package it up, but this dress is almost 60 years old and the material is discoloured rather than dirty.

I googled "professional vintage clothing cleaning" and found this:
treasuredgarmentrestoration.com/
It sounds a lovely idea

You need a cleaner that is a specialist in wedding dresses, or rather the materials that they are made of.

Depending on what the stains are they may not come out with just cleaning but that’s the first step.

Once examined and/or cleaned and if stains are still there, some materials might be able to have a light bleach or a darker dye. Unfortunately most wedding dresses have mixed fabrics (satin, silk, lace, overlays, mesh and such fripperies) that means bleach or dye isn’t consistent across the dress.

An alternative, if the dress can’t be cleaned/bleached/dyed and if the sentiment is worth more than an intact but unwearable heirloom, you could incorporate parts of the old dress into a new one e.g. sewing on a motif, frill or if having a dress made, the entire bodice or sleeve, if there are big enough parts unstained.

Raera, thank you that looks exactly what we are looking for, but they are in the USA and we are in the U.K.

The photo of the wedding gown restoration 1951 looks to be the same sort of material, so that is encouraging!

Sacrebleu, there's no overlay, mesh or lace fortunately. The material is a damask type material, with the pattern woven in.

It has occurred to us that we could ask a dressmaker to make a replica. The style is very much to my daughter's taste. She has the same figure as her grandmother, so the dress is a perfect fit.

I remember being quoted over a hundred for getting my dress cleaned in the early noughties. Ended up handwashing it in the bath with soap. Was a hot summer and dried fine on the line.

@Dulcinae

Raera, thank you that looks exactly what we are looking for, but they are in the USA and we are in the U.K.

The photo of the wedding gown restoration 1951 looks to be the same sort of material, so that is encouraging!

Sorry, I didn't look at the address. Only other thought to ask for advice is maybe National Trust or the Bath fashion museum perhaps? Or you could give Princess Beatrice a call!