Fashion Award Cleaners
1462 Lexington Avenue
212-289-5623
Cigarette burns, nasty gashes, and gaping moth holes are child's play to the meticulous staff at Fashion Award Cleaners. Your worst-snagged cashmere sweaters and wraps will have a new lease on life after a visit there. The clamor from fans like Tiffany Dubin and the staffs at Chanel and Nicole Farhi makes sense when you see the painstaking effort sewers use to renew each tattered hem, hood, and sleeve. They reweave every piece by hand, using a magnifying glass and threads that are color-matched from the hundreds of shades owner Jerry Leeds stocks. Expertise like this doesn't come cheap; prices start at $35 and escalate rapidly into the stratosphere. But it beats retiring a beloved N. Peal twinset to the back of your closet -- or dropping hundreds to replace it. The shop repairs 20 to 50 tattered, timeworn cashmere pieces per day, and they aren't just from Manhattan's urban rangers. Die-hard (and, we guess, perennially clumsy) fans ship turtlenecks, shawls, and wraps in need of some TLC from as far away as Argentina and South Africa.
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