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Many people have asked me, "Which dry cleaners should I use?" The answer is somewhat more complex than it may appear. Many factors should be considered:

• Price (as in how much you are willing to pay).
• What you are cleaning (shirts, ties, dresses, etc.).
• Safety for your clothes (especially buttons).
• Quality of service (pressing accuracy, etc.).

Firstly, if you're just looking for some place where you can occaisionally clean a few shirts and a jacket you wear twice a year, any old place will do. And it will be cheap. However, after reading this document, you should be wearing more dress shirts and suits and your wardrobe will be of higher quality. So, you'll want to find a decent dry cleaners.

Unfortunately, dry cleaning is like everything else: you get what you pay for. Dry cleaners can usually be separated into one of three tiers of service, listed in decending order of quality.

1. Fine quality dry cleaners.
2. National chain cleaners. (e.g., "Professional Cleaners")
3. Family-owned cleaners.

As far as the fine dry cleaners go, they are usually localized to a certain city. For example, in Atlanta I would recommend FashionCare. It offers the safest place to clean delicates—ties, dresses, etc., their pressing is excellent, and they offer numerous niceties:

• The shirts come back with collar holders. These cardboard inserts keep the front of your collar from "rolling out."
• Suits come with a piece of plastic looping over one button and through its button hole. This keeps the suit in its natural form while traveling and in the closet.
• French cuffs are already folded.
• The hangers for suits have body, that is, they hold the shape of the jacket —see the section on caring for your suits.

However, you do pay for these services, probably around double compared to a family-owned cleaners.

The big chains and family-owned institutions just don't perform like FashionCare: they sometimes break your buttons, press the top button of your collar so it rolls forward (thus forcing you to press it again before wearing), and don't provide any of the niceties listed above.

So, what I do is I take my nice shirts and all my suits to FashionCare, along with any ties that may be stained. Then, I take my cheap shirts to the family place down the street—I have to press them again occaisionally but it's worth the cheaper price tag.

Don't take your delicates, like ties or shirts with nice buttons, to anywhere but FashionCare or the top of the line dry cleaners in your area. Ask whether they do a lot of ties before taking in yours. Ties are rather difficult to clean and sometimes family-type places will return to you a strip of shredded silk—don't take any chances with your favorite neckwear!