What you see from the outside is a series of window displays which rival those of the most fashionable department stores and boutiques in New York City, even during the holiday season. But, behind the lavish displays of this third generation, family-owned business is an organization of meticulous expertise, painstaking attention to detail and a staff of hard working, well trained experts with a real love and appreciation for textiles and high fashion. Madame Paulette Couture Cleaners, located at 1255 Second Avenue (at 65th Street) is more than that, however. Madame Paulette is the American Dream realized and one of just a few surviving businesses where the lion’s share of work for a global clientele is completed in the USA, specifically, in New York City.
The current owner of Madame Paulette is John Mahdessian (left, with Zac Posen), great nephew of Madame Paulette founder, Andy Mamasian, and son of the second owner, Noubar Mahdessian. The history is as follows: Andy Mamasian was married to a French woman named Madame Paulette, a fashionable Upper East Side lady with a circle of fashionable Upper East Side friends. Andy saw the need, through Paulette’s lifestyle and associations, for good dry cleaning services and created a niche, serving all the fashionable residents of the chic Manhattan neighborhood. He opened Madame Paulette Dry Cleaner in 1959. That same year, Noubar Mahdessian, Andy’s nephew, immigrated to the United States from Cyprus. When he arrived, he worked in Andy’s dry cleaning shop by day. By night, he concentrated on his studies at New York University. Within the year, though, Andy became ill and Noubar took over. For 30 years, Noubar worked tirelessly, running the business and raising his family.
Fast forward to 1987, the year John Mahdessian graduated from college and promptly found himself a job on Wall Street. For his last free summer, he decided to work with his father to “learn the business.” It wasn’t until that summer John realized how difficult the work was. “Labor intensive with a lot of chemicals,” he says. Not more than a year later, John retired his father and took over the business. John approached his work and the running of things from a business standpoint. He had a “no is never an option” attitude and applied a methodical, consistent approach to improve the work product over time. In the evenings, he would tinker at the shop, testing new formulations to use on some of the more challenging requests he was receiving. But mostly, he focused on customer service. “I would get a call from a panicked customer with a spill while they were still at a restaurant having dinner. I’d go to the restaurant, remove the stain and they’d go on their way. Like magic.”
With his work ethic and determination to improve over time, John started receiving bigger jobs like museum collections of historical pieces that were, for the most part, lost in history, with water damage, mildew, blood stains, dye etc. For an historical job, the work often includes dissembling the garment, identifying and recreating the way in which the garment was originally dyed and simulate it, simulate the stain on the sample, treat the sample, transfer successful techniques to the original garment, recondition the fabric and carefully, hand sew the garment back together using historical methods. A collection could take up to a year to complete. “It’s like open-heart surgery,” John says. “It was an education. Fun, challenging and exciting. I never turned anyone down.” Some of the more famous collections John has worked on have been the late Princess Diana’s gowns for a museum tour, vintage Coco Chanel and Valentino. “We take a very conservative approach to these pieces so we don’t have an adverse affect,” he says. “There’s a lot of liability.” All of Madame Paulette’s services are insured, bonded and guaranteed.
In June 2009, just in time for the shop’s 50th Anniversary celebration, John reopened in a larger space one block from the original location fitted with display windows featuring collections from different designers and private collectors. The shop’s dressing rooms include every type of lighting – day, evening, natural and fluorescent – with a black light feature for detecting stains not visible to the naked eye. The business has an even larger facility in Long Island City where garments are carefully cleaned and restored and sometimes stored in temperature controlled environments. By the time Madame Paulette moved shop and through sheer hard work, long hours and extreme customer service, John had amassed a clientele of celebrities, designers, bridal houses, museums and notable people including Meryl Streep, Vera Wang, Donald Trump, Naomi Campbell, the Springsteens, Barbara Walters, Patti Smith, Eva Longoria Parker (she once admired an Angel Sanchez dress in the window and sent stylist Robert Verdi to retrieve it for her from the display), Billy Crystal and Faith Hill (who ships her gowns to New York for service).
Couture gowns worn on the red carpet are a big part of John’s repertoire. Award ceremony gowns, in particular, require substantial effort and attention. “These delicate couture gowns are trashed at the after parties, stepped on, ripped. We make them new again,” John says. “And it’s not just couture gowns we restore. Over the years, we’ve worked on some unusual items like doggie couture, Snap, Crackle and Pop costumes, an Andy Warhol tapestry from a German castle, lamp shades, shoes, and John Wayne’s personal clothing from a collector. We’ve seen everything.”
Madame Paulette receives work from and ships to every country on the globe. “We have the most demanding clients in the world who expect a lot from us. We do whatever it takes to make our clients happy because we care about our reputation most of all,” John says. At the Long Island City facility where most of the work is done, there are 10-15 couture tailors plus beaders, pressers and cleaners. “We see some very exotic pieces at the facility,” John says. “When necessary, we’ll send our experts to our clients’ homes, private jets or anywhere we’re needed.” “Anywhere” also means behind-the-scenes at New York’s extravagant Fashion Week where Madame Paulette staff members remain on call for sudden runway crises. And, for stain emergencies, the shop has a 24-hour toll-free number (1-877-COUTURE).
51 years later, John still has ideas about taking the business in new directions. In addition to current services (cleaning, tailoring and alterations, restoration, interiors, leather, suede and fur), the shop has been utilizing eco-friendly cleaning processes, or what they call “green standards,” for more than 25 years (the same processes other cleaners have just begun implementing). Green standards were born from a concern for and by clients with sensitivities to the cleaning chemicals. In addition to green standards for cleaning, Madame Paulette has replaced traditional materials with poly and plastic recyclable hangars.
John is developing a consumer dry cleaning line for people who want to apply some straight-forward cleaning processes to garments or textiles at home. In the meantime, Madame Paulette offers a patented stain removal kit which works differently from conventional stain remover cloths or pens. According to John, the two most important factors to removing a stain successfully is time (sooner is better) and identification of the type of stain which would fall into one of three categories: earth-based stains (fruit juices, teas, colas, liquors), protein-based stains (dairy products, eggs, blood, perspiration) or oil-based stains (vegetable, mineral or petroleum oils like baby oil, animal fat, salad dressing, mayonnaise, motor oil or grease). Each kit contains foil-sealed packets of each formulation, waffle-patterned cloths and a distilled water rinse which flushes out any remaining stain particles without leaving an unsightly ring on the garment. Each formula is biodegradable and rinses out with water.
John’s success has made it possible to give back to the community. He serves as Chairman of the Board for Fashion Donations (saving clothes to save lives by restoring donated couture gowns and auctioning them for charity) and has created partnerships with Cancer 101 and the New York Presbyterian New Leaders. Madame Paulette supports a number of other charitable organizations including New Yorkers for Children, Children’s Cancer & Blood Foundation, the New York Junior League and the Armenia Tree Project (whose mission is to support reforestation projects in Armenia’s impoverished and deforested zones). John is a member of the Fraternal Order of Police and an Associate Member of the New Jersey State Law Enforcement Agency.
To learn more about Madame Paulette Couture Cleaners or to purchase stain removal kits ($12.50/kit) go to www.madamepaulette.com. Enter code 15STAINKIT at checkout to receive 15% off of any order.
