CHICAGO — The front counter of a drycleaning business may see hundreds of interactions each week, and most of them are routine. But certain customers have a way of breaking that routine and becoming memorable.
In Part 1 of this series, we shared tales of surprise restorations of museum-quality wardrobes and customers who mistook their dry cleaners for “ATMs,” and in Part 2, we related an elevator mystery and cleaning for those who have built empires.
Today, we’ll conclude our walk down memory lane with some tales from the Big Apple.
The Ghost in the Garment Bag
For Rechelle Balanzat, CEO and founder of New York City-based dry cleaner Juliette, some customer moments transcend the nature of the business and become lessons about life itself.
One afternoon, a man appeared with a 4-year-old ticket. “I’m here to pick up my order,” he said.
Because space in New York City doesn’t allow for unexpected storage, the policy at Juliette is to donate anything unclaimed after six months. But Balanzat realized in that instant that what the customer wanted wasn’t really the garment.
“It was the past — the version of himself who had dropped it off, intending to return ‘soon,’” she says.
When she told him the clothes were gone, he stood quietly for a moment, then said, “That makes sense.” He wasn’t angry — just surprised at how much time had slipped away.
“Sometimes, laundry teaches you more about life than business ever could,” Balanzat says. “If you don’t claim what’s yours in time, it gets folded into someone else’s story.”
Another afternoon, a longtime client came in to drop off her usual order. As she spoke with Daniella, the CSR, at the counter, she suddenly went quiet — her eyes welled up, and she had to step outside for air. They didn’t know what had happened.
A few minutes later, she came back in, composed but obviously moved. She explained that Daniella’s perfume was the exact scent her mother used to wear — and her mother had recently died. The fragrance had caught her off guard.
“‘For a moment,’ she said, ‘it felt like she was standing right here,’” Balanzat says. “You realize that scent — like clothing — carries memory. It lingers, it comforts, it haunts. And in that instant, our little corner of the city became more than a dry cleaner. It became a place where someone felt connected again, even for a breath.”
Working Miracles
Then there was Fashion Week — a chaotic time, but Balanzat says she lives for it. “One year, a stylist rushed in with a Dior gown worth more than most people’s rent,” she says. “It had been splashed with espresso during a photo shoot. The show was the next morning, and the stylist looked ready to cry.”
They had three hours to perform a miracle.
“My team and I worked like surgeons — alternating between spotting, steaming and air-drying in five-minute rotations,” Balanzat says. “Every decision had to be precise: too much solvent and we’d damage the silk; too much steam and the structure would collapse.”
They finished on time, she says, “exhausted, exhilarated and terrified.”
The next day, Balanzat got a text: “The dress made it to Vogue.”
“That moment captured exactly what Juliette stands for — invisible excellence,” she says. “Nobody in the audience knew the drama that happened behind the scenes. But we did. And that’s the point.”
Engineered Laundry
But perhaps the most memorable customer was the gentleman who came in with a very specific request: His shirts had to be folded to exactly 8 inches in width — no more, no less — so they would slide perfectly into his dresser drawers.
“He wasn’t joking,” Balanzat says. “The next day, he returned with a hand-drawn diagram, complete with measurements and arrows, to demonstrate the ‘correct’ geometry of a folded shirt. It looked like something between a blueprint and a love letter to order.”
Juliette followed his instructions precisely, she says. And when he opened his drawer at home, everything aligned with military perfection.
“He later told us, ‘It’s the first time my life feels in control,’” Balanzat says. “That’s when it hit me — people don’t come to us for clean clothes. They come for control, comfort or a sense of calm in a world that rarely folds itself neatly.”
For Part 1 of this series, click HERE. For Part 2, click HERE.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Dave Davis at [email protected].
