![]() The pockets are sewn shut before the workers press the garments. “They come shipped packed in boxes, flat, and if a pocket is askew and if it is packed up and is put on the water on a big ship coming from China for a month, it’s going to be a disaster when it gets here.” ![]() “Garments are usually shipped even if they are made in this country, which nothing is,” said Shapiro. Sewing pockets, vents and pleats shut can ensure that the clothes keep their intended shape during both manufacturing as well as the arduous shipping process. Why do clothing manufacturers sew the pockets shut? Listener Carolyn Somerville sent in this question: “Think about how many men’s shirts a typical place would have, it far outnumbers the number of women’s blouses they’d get.”Īccording to Shapiro, men still make up a majority of those who send out their clothes for dry cleaning and laundering. If the price difference comes down to the size of shirts, why don’t dry cleaners just get smaller presses?Īt the moment, there are no presses for smaller shirts, “because there is not really a call for it,” said Blake. According to the Los Angeles Times, California became the first state to prohibit such discrimination back in 1995. Over the years, a number of states and cities have passed laws prohibiting gender-based price discrimination. The woman - Barbara Anthony, chief of the Public Protection Bureau in the attorney general’s office - was charged $3 compared to the $1.50 that her male colleague was charged. However, some dry cleaners do not make that distinction.īack in 1991, the Massachusetts attorney general’s office conducted an experiment where a woman and a man brought the same pink cotton blouse to a number of dry cleaners. This is why Blake recommends that dry cleaning places do not list gender on their price lists and instead determine their prices based on size and design. It takes a lot longer to do than the standard typical men’s button-down cotton shirt and that’s the biggest difference.”Īny shirts that don’t fit the standard press - whether they be for smaller men or larger men or women’s shirts - should be charged more since they’d take longer to press, he said. “When you get to the blouses, because of the ornamentation or because of the size difference, they don’t have automated presses to do those, so those have to be done on different presses and it takes a lot more labor. You can do two at the same time, it’s a high production item,” he explained. They go on automate presses and you can do 50 of them an hour, maybe 70 an hour. “Typically men’s shirts are pretty straight forward - they are anywhere from 14.5 inches to 17.5 inches neck size - and button down. So there’s a little bit of a difference.” When asked if male customers knew that their shirts were being laundered and not dry cleaned, both Shapiro and Blake insisted that customers were aware.īlake, who is vehemently opposed to gender-based pricing, also points out that the reason why dry cleaning some items might cost more than others is due to their size and design. People think just because you bring something to the dry cleaners that it’s being dry cleaned, but cotton shirts - like men’s business shirts - those are all being laundered. ![]() “If you bring men’s cotton, button-down Oxford shirts to the dry cleaner, they are not dry cleaning those. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a blouse or a man’s or woman’s shirt, if you dry clean it, it’s going to cost more than if you launder something,” explained Peter Blake, executive director of South Eastern Fabricare Association, SEFA. Women, on the other hand, tend to drop off their shirts to be dry cleaned and hung. That means that they are washed in a machine instead of dry cleaned. Most often when men drop off their shirts to be cleaned, they want them folded, according to Phyllis Shapiro, founder and president of Innovating Consulting Solutions and a faculty member at The New School’s Parson School of Design. Why do dry cleaners charge more for ladies’ dress shirts than men’s dress shirts? Listener Agnes Welch sent in this question: Ever wondered if recycling is worth it? Or how store brands stack up against name brands? What do you wonder? Let us know here. This is just one of the stories from our “I’ve Always Wondered” series, where we tackle all of your questions about the world of business, no matter how big or small. ![]()
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