216 Issue 02–NEW YORK 217

TEXT:

ALIX BROWNE

PHOTOS:

JOSS MCKINLEY

Who is the primary custodian of New York City’s fashion history? The Met Costume Institute’s head curator, Andrew Bolton, would be one obvious candidate. Or perhaps Anna Wintour, Editor in Chief of American Vogue. And then there are those who might argue that that critical responsibility lands squarely on the shoulders of John Mahdessian. If you have ever spilled a glass of red wine down the front of your Calvin Klein jacket, or had a trove of Pierre Balmain gowns ru-ined in a flood (more on that later), then chances are exceedingly good you are familiar with Mahdessian’s work.

Madame Paulette, New York City’s most chichi dry cleaners, was founded in 1959 by Mahdessian’s great uncle, who according to leg-end, had had quite enough of his wife’s annual pilgrimages to Paris for

218 Issue 01 –MILAN

PREVIOUS PAGE: An early 1960s

shift dress by Norman Norell.

THIS PAGE: A “Goddess” jersey

dress by Halston, from the

1970s.

regular wardrobe maintenance. Mahdessian took over the business from his father in 1987, and likes to tell his own biblical origin story.

“In the mid-’90s, a client, a big socialite, had an en-tire collection of Pierre Balmain from the 1950s, and it was all going to the museum for an exhibition,” he says, on a sweltering June day, as we sit in his office at the Madame Paulette headquarters in Long Island City, in the shadow of the 59th Street Bridge. “The dresses were all on rolling racks or what not in her living room, and there was a massive flood from the apartment a couple floors above. Everything got water damaged.” By the time the woman finally turned to Madame Paulette for help, the dyes were bleeding from one dress to the next, and mildew was rampant. “When I got everything, it was in a giant garbage bag,” Madhessian recalls. “She said to me, ‘If there is anything you can save that would be great, otherwise I give you permission to discard it.’”

Over the course of a year, Mahdessian methodical-ly worked through the Balmains, taking them apart, and figuring out how to restore them piece by piece. “Everyone would go home and I’d pop back on the lights and the mad scientist would come out,” he says. Of the 100 or so pieces, he was able to save about 90.

As he recounts this well-worn tale, he takes an occasional swig of Day-Glo orange Gatorade from a Styrofoam cup. I can’t help but imagine the bitch of a stain that stuff could leave. But Mahdessian is unfazed. He schools me in the different types of stain groups—“one is from the Earth, like fruit juices, teas, colas; one is from the body: milk, blood, perspiration, urine, things like that; and the third is all oil matter, which is either a mineral, vegetable, or petroleum oil”— and the innovations he has developed to deal with them. He is particularly proud of his latest endeavor, a patented, professional stain removal kit that will be distributed

220 221 Issue 02–NEW YORK Madame Paulette

OPPOSITE: A 1980s sequin top

and thigh-high boots by

Stephen Sprouse.

223 Madame Paulette

OPPOSITE: A 1990s baby-doll

dress by Anna Sui.

to high-end hotels, the first and business class cab-ins on certain airlines—basically, anywhere you might suddenly find yourself in a sticky situation. When Mahdessian vows to me, “I’ve seen and touched it all,” I do not question him.

All around us is evidence of Madame Paulette’s lofty position in the New York social swirl. Just out-side the door hangs a reprint of a recent story on Mahdessian, entitled “A Spotless Reputation.” And on the wall above my head hang photos of him with the designers Carolina Herrera and Vera Wang, as well as First Lady Melania Trump. Relationships between fin-icky New Yorkers and their dry cleaners are famously fraught, providing plenty of fodder for gossip columns over the years. After all, who can resist the literal airing of dirty laundry?

Take the infamous Bonne Nuit silk pajama scandal, involving a top belonging to the gallerist Mary Boone that went to the cleaners in a vivid shade of blue that re-sembled the sky, and came back a dull ivory. Or the story of the seamstress who pricked her finger while stitching a wedding dress on to the daughter of a Texas oilman, bleeding all over the pristine white silk. (Cindy Adams had a field day with that one in the Post.) Or the more recent incident involving the moth-infested closet of Skinnygirl empire founder Bethenny Frankel. (Fun fact: Mahdessian is the boyfriend of The Real Housewives of New York City Dorinda Medley.) According to a ma-jor dry-cleaning exposé in the New York Observer, a few prominent New Yorkers still prefer to take care of things the old-fashioned way. When the late socialite Nan Kempner was asked where she sent her clothes to be cleaned, she simply replied, “To Paris.” 

Relationships between finicky New Yorkers and their dry cleaners are famously fraught, providing plenty of fodder for gossip columns over the years. After all, who can resist the literal airing of dirty laundry?

225 Vignelli224 Issue 02–NEW YORK

OPPOSITE: Early 2000s white

pantsuit by Helmut Lang.

226 Issue 02–NEW YORK

OPPOSITE: A two-piece dress from

Proenza Schouler’s Fall/Winter

2017 collection.

CREDITS: Norman Norell,

Halston, and Stephen Sprouse

dresses, courtesy of Decades,

Los Angeles. Helmut Lang

pantsuit, courtesy Alix Browne.

Anna Sui and Proenza Schouler

dresses, courtesy the designers.