Where Did all the Dry Cleaners Go?

What happened to the local dry cleaners and what caused the change? The neighbourhood’s seen it’s fair share of closures. The stretch of Dundas Street West between Keele and Runnymede had at least 3 dry cleaners 10 years ago, now you have to go to Annette Street to find the closest dry cleaner to that stretch of Dundas. Has fashion changed the way you clean your clothes or is it work from home policies?

We are definitely more casual then we used to be. Casual Friday’s has slowly crept into everyday. Some business professionals and office workers still suit up everyday. We know from Zoom meetings that suit jackets still appear, goodness knows what’s going on under the desk, track pants, Bermuda shorts, but that jacket would need to be cleaned from time to time.

Finely woven Merino wool can be washed by hand but a suit jacket is made of more then just the fabric of it’s shell. You certainly can’t throw it into the washer or can you? A quick YouTube search will offer you several videos on how to hand or machine wash that wool suit. You may want to test it on the suit you bought at a boxing day sale before you throw in your Armani or Channel.

No matter how you feel about it work from home policies appear to be shifting back to in-office, especially if your organization has office space that’s been sitting half empty since 2020. Will the shift mean a move back to high maintenance fashion?

Either way the environmentalists can’t be happy; any environmental gains from the reduction in dry cleaning chemicals has been obscured by fast fashion. We’ll save environmental impacts of fast fashion for another story.