Interior Cleaning Technician

• Minimum of 2 years experience in Interior Cleaning: Upholstery, Carpet Cleaning, Drapery Cleaning
• Must have knowledge of Interior Textiles
• Prefer Certified Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC)

Spotter

• Must have 5-10 years of experience as a Spotter
• Work with Bridal Gowns
• Prefer Certified Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC)

Customer Service Representative

• Communicate & Develop relationships with high-end/affluent clientele
• Excellent communication skills
• Ability to work in a fast paced environment
• Shows customer sensitivity
• Ability to follow directions
• Computer knowledge
• Able to problem solve
• Displays logic and common sense
• 5+ years Experience in Luxury Fashion/Retail/Hospitality Industry
• Flexibility on weekend schedule either Saturday or Sunday
• Working days Monday through Friday

Please email your resume to hr@madamepaulette.com.

Human Resources Department
Telephone: 347-689-7010 ext 721
Facsimile: 718-482-7136

The Human Resources Department’s hours are 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday

The Madame Paulette Organization is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against qualified individuals on the basis of race, color, religion, age, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, or disability.

By Dana Shuster | Fall 2009

It used to be easier to be flippant about stains. Red wine, oil, blood, grass, whatever. If your dry-cleaner couldn’t fix it—or further ruined it in the process, as is all too often sadly the case—you’d toss it out, donate it to charity, consider it part of an involuntary closet purge. No big deal. There was always a new blouse or cocktail dress around the corner.

Even for a woman’s most cherished items, the cycle of life and death is inevitable when it comes to clothing. Certainly, some ladies abide by the “it’s so beautiful, I don’t want to wear it” adage, but with pocket books all the more lean in today’s economic climate, most women are following a different mantra: if you’ve got it, wear it.

That means that instead of shelling out big bucks to replace a soiled jacket or a torn chiffon gown, women are spending their money on cleaning, restoring, and tailoring. “They’re not discarding these pieces like they used to…now women are taking care of these things more often…they’re being more conscious of the environment and the economics,” explained John Mahdessian, President of Madame Paulette, a famed New York City-based couture cleaner (shame on the sap who calls it a dry-cleaner) that caters to a worldwide clientele and has plans to eventually open in Los Angeles and Dubai, among other fashion-centric cities.

Madame Paulette was opened 50 years ago by Mahdessian’s great uncle after he emigrated from Cyprus. He named the shop after a French woman with whom he fell in love and later married. John Mahdessian eventually left his career in investment banking (a serendipitous move, perhaps?) to help his father who had taken over the business. The shop’s global beginnings remain intact today. “I would probably say that 20 to 25 percent of our clients ship from outside NYC,” explained Mahdessian, adding that his clients include everyone from Faith Hill and Norma Kamali to Vera Wang and Melania Trump (the latter of whom he assisted down to the last minute at her extravagant nuptials to Donald Trump as guest cum tailor). “I remember a long time ago, Norma Kamali was at a café on Madison Avenue and she called and said, ‘Oh my God, I just spilled an entire decanter of red wine!’ I showed up in the middle of the afternoon during lunch, I did my magic and removed the entire stain, got a standing ovation and left,” Mahdessian laughs with the chuckle of a fondly remembered, and often told, anecdote.

Although the economic climate has resulted in a dip in Madame Paulette’s “maintenance” servicing, Mahdessian says that business has actually gone up in other arenas, particularly with customers’ more expensive pieces.

Celebrity stylist, Rachel Zoe, isn’t surprised. “I think that people are revisiting things that they maybe were sick of a few seasons ago and probably closet-cleaning and pulling out pieces that they once loved but haven’t worn in a while and getting them tailored more closely to their bodies,” explained Zoe.

Certainly, tailoring and high-quality cleaning doesn’t come cheap. “I look at clothes…some of them are pieces of art. And how much do you spend to protect a piece of art? If you’re going to spend thousands on a clothing item or furniture or anything that is valuable, maintaining it is part of the process,” said television impresario/model Hofit Golan, an avid MP customer after Mahdessian himself saved Golan at Denise Rich’s Angel Ball a few years back when a reveler knocked over a four-foot centerpiece vase and its entire aquatic contents crashed all over her couture crimson gown that she was slated to wear for a photo shoot a mere three days later.

“My husband sees the bills and sometimes says, ‘Oh my gosh. I can’t believe it!” exclaimed Pamella DeVos, President and Owner of Pamella Roland, of her dry cleaning costs, though she’s noticed that he’s started to throw some of his higher-end items in with her “to clean” shipments from her home-base in Michigan.

The monthly bills might seem to defy recession-logics in the heat of the garment-pressing moment. But restoring or saving a favorite outfit is almost always a less expensive option than dashing to Bergdorf’s for a replacement.  That is, as long as you abide by Zoe’s mandate that, “alterations and dry cleaning should never be more than the actual item.”

Of course, keeping your clothes in tip-top condition before a tipsy colleague is able to splash you down with that night’s Bordeaux is key to an outfit’s longevity. Zoe likes to keep anything with embellishment or made of fragile material such as chiffon or silk jersey in a plastic garment bag to avoid dress-to-dress snagging. She also swears by thin, black velvet hangers and keeps her scarves stacked in big Hermes boxes. “It’s nice to look at rather than sweater piles,” she explained of her Hermes storage system.

Lisa Anastos, arts patron, keeps Madame Paulette’s on-the-go stain removal kit nearby. “I have one in my apartment and one is in my travel bag. It’s part of my toiletries,” Anastos said.

Melania Trump’s advice? “Always take care of your belongings, and store them in the right places. Keep shoes either in their boxes or on shelves and keep handbags stued with something to ensure that they keep their shape.”

And when fate isn’t on your side, it’s important to act quickly the next time your Salvatore gets soiled. “Time is a very critical factor in stain removal,” Mahdessian warned. “The longer you let a stain sit in a garment or on a textile, the harder it is to remove because it becomes oxidized.”

Ah, the science of salvaging! As if women needed another reason to chase the clock.

By Kenneth D. King | December 2009/January 2010

When you have a $70,000 couture gown to dry-clean, you don’t just drop it off at the corner cleaners. Take it to a place that satisfies customers like Barbara Walters, Martha Stewart, Anna Wintour, and Melania Trump. They put their textiles in the skilled hands of Madame Paulette, a custom couture cleaner who this year, celebrates 50 years of care and cleaning for their famous and discerning clients. Couture houses such as Chanel, Christian Dior, Fendi, Gucci, Hermes, and Vera Wang are included on their prestigious client list because they are known to maintain and preserve the integrity of the finest garments in the world.

In the fashion world, reputation is everything; Madame Paulette is known as the dry-cleaner of choice among designers, celebrities, museums, and auction houses, as well as the authority on fabric restoration. John Mahdessian, its third-generation owner, thinks nothing of responding to clients and garments in distress, be it around the corner or around the globe.

To discover how meticulously crafted garments are healed, I paid a visit to Madame Paulette on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. In these workrooms spots and snags disappear and lost beads miraculously reappear. Gowns in distress are returned to their owners in pristine condition.

Here, follow a canary yellow silk crepe Lanvin dress through the steps of its special care cleaning to learn how this fascinating process is done. Handling of this sort is given to exquisitely designed and executed couture garments, vintage ones with personal or sentimental value, or something associated with everlasting memories such as a christening gown or wedding dress.

We’ll also watch an Oscar de la Renta beaded cocktail dress get restored to its original elegance after stains and tarnished beads threaten to ruin it. Not every cleaner has the equipment, the experienced team, or the courage to take on items of this quality. When a local dry cleaner tells you to remove the feathers from your gown before they’ll clean it, you’ll know your options. You don’t have to live in New York City to take advantage of an establishment like Madame Paulette–they work with clients from around the world, so when the cherished garments you’ve made run into trouble the situation is not hopeless.

F.I.T. professor, and designer extraordinaire, Kenneth D. King knows all the best places.

Follow a special-care garment
Designer garments—both couture and vintage—deserve the care that keeps them beautiful for many decades. Every step in their care and cleaning is important; it starts with meticulous preparation and ends with perfectly executed finishing.

When a special-care garment arrives at Madame Paulette, it’s inspected for spots and stains. If any are found, each spot is marked with a color-coded arrow for pretreatment. A detailed inspection occurs after every step in the cleaning process.

The pretreatment process includes analyzing the stain on a spotting board, which resembles an ironing board that has a porous narrow end attached to a high-powered vacuum. The vacuum has a nozzle with different heads that emit either steam, water, or air, depending on the nature of a specific stain. A vacuum foot control enables the operator to keep his or her hands-on the garment from start to finish.

There was only one arrow found on our Lanvin beauty, located near the hem and next to a ruffle. The technician applies the appropriate spotting agent to the fabric with a cotton swab.

Then, using the nozzle, spotting board, and a combination of steam and air, the spot is removed without leaving a telltale ring.

Since our gown doesn’t have any fragile detailing, it’s put into a mesh bag to prevent abrasion and fabric bleeding. It then goes into a cleaning machine that resembles an oversize washer or dryer.

Spiros Pouhronakis, a Madame Paulette presser, refers to a photo of the gown and learns it has soft molded pleats. Natural fibers resist permanent pleating, so they get re-pleated every time the garment is cleaned. He starts slowly, building the soft pleats back into the gown with his fingers as he presses.

Spiros also demonstrates a pressing machine favored for tailored clothing that can press shoulders, sleeves, and assure a perfect finish across the back of a tailored jacket.

Spiros achieves a flawless finish. His lightweight iron operates on compressed steam and is easy to maneuver, so it rarely touches the garment.

The gown is finished and looks exactly as it did on the Paris runway.

Finally, the gown is packaged in special bagging so the work that went into its restoration is preserved.

Observe a restoration rescue
Here, a damaged Oscar de la Renta cocktail dress is restored. Every detail gets strict attention to return the dress to its original glamour.

The dress arrives for restoration. Perspiration has reacted with the coating on the beads and caused staining under the arms and on the neckline. The tailor’s shop firsts removes the damaged beads.

With water, steam, compressed air, and chemicals, technician, J.R. Riley gradually lightens the spot. With more than fifty years of experience, he knows how to identify stains and fabrics, and what chemicals will remove them safely.

Some muscle power is needed. This stain proves to be a stubborn one, so he decides to soak the dress overnight in a bath of water and chemicals.

The next day, the dress is removed from the bath and hung on a hanger. J.R. then spray-rinses it and allows it to drip dry, so the excess water runs out.

The dress then goes into a cabinet where warm air is blown at it from all directions, gently and safely drying it.

After the dress is dry, J.R. sprays on a fabric conditioner to give the silk back its original luster. Another trip to the drying cabinet follows.

Sadly, all of the silver bugle beads are tarnished and have darkened. So the gown was sent to the tailor’s shop, where the beads were painstakingly replaced by hand. This two-week-long process involves opening the dress lining and duplicating the pattern and look of the original beading without distorting the hang of the dress.

Back for a final pressing. Once the beading is completed, the master presser finishes the job with a combination of ironing and steaming. The gown is then placed on a padded hanger, steamed one more time, inspected, and then returned to its owner for another evening out!

Cleaning Chemistry
During the time I spent at Madame Paulette, I was told repeatedly that many garments are ruined by people trying to treat stains or mitigate damage before getting it to a cleaner. It’s best to get the garment to the cleaner promptly and tell them (if possible) what the stain is; you’ll stand the best chances of being able to reverse any damages.

That said, Madame Paulette does make a professional stain-removal kit for on-the-spot emergencies. Each kit contains blot cloths, rinse cloths, and special formula cloths for each of the following three specific stain groups. Some stains are a combination of these types and require multiple formulas with rinses between. The rinse cloths are made with distilled water to prevent water spotting–a good tip to remember.

Earth based stains:
Alcoholic beverage/liquor, fruit juices, black coffee and tea, jelly, jam, honey, syrup, soft drinks, soda, toothpaste, vegetable juices, and white wine.

Protein based stains:
Blood, dairy/milk products, perspiration, and vomit.

Oil based stains:
All cooking oils, bacon grease, lotions, creams, mayonnaise, mineral oil, motor oil, grease, salad dressings, skin and hair oils and gels.

September 2009

OPERATION: RESTORATION

IT’S RARE TO FIND a company that truly leads its industry, but Madame Paulette is one of those exceptional few. The first name in couture cleaning, altering and restoring (The Met, The Louvre and Sotheby’s are a few of its clients) is actually preserving fashion history, says president John Mahdessian. “It could be something vintage and sentimental or it could be a current Pucci dress that got red wine spilled on it,” he says of the range of requests they receive, which involve apparel, accessories, fur, bridal, interiors and furniture. “We even cleaned Donald Trump’s plane last week.”

After 50 years, three generations and countless repaired pieces everything from Princess Diana’s gowns and Joe DiMaggio’s original jersey to an Andy Warhol paper dress—Madame Paulette is doing a bit of housekeeping itself. The company recently unveiled a boutique-style concept, complete with 1,600 square feet of merchandising space, storefront windows rivaling Bergdorf and a lounge-like atmosphere where clients can relax in Frette robes and sip Taittinger Champagne while the staff analyzes their needs. Luxurious? Certainly. But the bottom line is that high fashion is an investment and should be treated with care. And when you have access to those trained to do just that, why take a risk on any old dry cleaner?

October 2009

Sweaters: It’s time to pull them out of hiding. What’s stopping you? Right - that musty smell. “Tumble sweaters in a dryer at a cool temperature for just a few minutes,” advises John Mahdessian, president of legendary New York City cleaners Madame Paulette. If they need a good cleaning, use a net bag and wool-safe detergent, and set your front-load washer to gentle, with a high level of water. Dry them flat. For pilling: “Use a plastic razor blade and carefully shave off the pills.”

October 2009

Famed New York City dry cleaner Madame Paulette has come out with a super portable stain-removal kit. It’s not much bigger than an iPhone, but it includes three gentle cleansers for different fabrics-plus clothes, rinses and tips for getting out everything from toothpaste to salad dressing!

By David Lion Rattiner | September 2009

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and your staff for the extraordinary effort rendered in detailing the interior of Mr. Trump’s Boeing 727 aircraft…” - Michael F. Donovan, Director - Flight Operations, The Trump Organization.

As with all things in life, achieving excellence in any field or profession breeds success. Madame Paulette is what Tiger Woods is to golf, or Michael Jordan to basketball. For Madame Paulette their game is textile care and they are the masters of their domain. Whether it is a yacht, house, plane, boat, leathers and furs, wedding gown, designer apparel, home furnishing or anything else that is valuable, expensive and important to you, Madame Paulette is where the best of the best of New York, and even the world dare to take their one of a kind pieces.

As far as what the business does, the owner of the company, John Mahdessian, explained it best, “My job is to keep the world spotless, one spot at a time.”

But it is the excellence and the service of his company that shines through. Mahdessian handles it all, from million dollar estates, to dresses and gowns worth hundreds of thousands, to museum pieces. His team can restore, prepare and clean anything, anywhere at any time and his reputation speaks for itself. Besides his celebrity clientele, even the top insurance companies call on him. His techniques are as sophisticated as his business. Mahdessian explains that, “Insurance companies who are insuring high net worth individuals who suffer a loss from damage call us for full restorations. In some cases for example, a rug worth $100,000 might be damaged from a flood and the insurance companies call us to restore the rug back to its original condition. I’d say in the case that items that thought to be unsalvageable, 90% of the time are salvageable when they come to us.”

The professionalism of this company is astounding, and their success is 100% tied to the performance and quality of the work that they do, but also to the sophisticated techniques that they employ. They do what is thought of as impossible by competitors, putting the company in its own league. Founded on the principle of excellence over half a century ago, Madame Paulette has achieved the status of being the finest custom couture cleaner in the world. Located in the heart of New York City, the name has reached many clients in the Hamptons.

Mahdessian’s business is known to serve internationally renowned couture designers, retail establishments, celebrities, dignitaries, corporate executives and high-profile VIPs. One can only imagine what a day in the office is like at Madame Paulette, but I got a taste of it while interviewing Mahdessian over the telephone, “Just a second Dave, can you hang on a second? What’s that? Eva Longoria wants to wear that gown? Make that happen, yank it out of the window.”

Apparently Eva Longoria saw a dress in the window she liked and wanted to wear it to a high profile event. “I’m telling you, if you were a fly on the wall during our conference calls you have enough to write about for 100 years,” Mahdessian laughs.

Madame Paulette’s business in the Hamptons is growing thanks to a large demographic out here who have expensive home furnishings that they want to last forever and to keep looking like new. “We maintain and preserve the integrity and value for some of the most expensive items in the world, so when you come to us it’s an investment in the item. In the Hamptons we offer constant care programs to maintain and preserve the beautiful home materials, textiles and furnishings year round, and can dispatch a team at any time to home within 24 hours.”

So who is Madame Paulette? Well the man behind running the company, Mahdessian, is a third generation owner of the family who founded it. The history of the company is interesting and rich. It started in the early 1950s when Noubar Mahdessian began working at his uncle’s dry cleaning business while attending school at night. An Armenian immigrant with determination to own a business, Mahdessian quickly learned the trade and found great satisfaction in his work. In just a few years, Mahdessian purchased Madame Paulette from his uncle. His wife, Ann, soon joined him at the Madame Paulette store and together they slowly increased business and developed a loyal following. Almost 30 years later, their son, John, made a last minute decision to turn down a high-powered Wall Street job so that he could run Madame Paulette. Mahdessian has always shared a passion for his family and their business and has expanded Madame Paulette’s services, advanced technology, and set his gaze on a bright future for the company that his parents had built.

Mahdessian has continued the vision of his family and it has worked, attracting the biggest names in the industry of fashion and handling the finest estates, offices, boats, planes and properties in the world.

Apparel houses such as Hermes, Carolina Herrera and Vera Wang use Madame Paulette. Corporations including Bergdorf Goodman and Trump International Hotel and Tower and high profile clients, including Anna Wintour, Kelly Ripa, Barbara Walters and Sting, all depend on Madame Paulette for superb care of their garments and interior home textiles. “Restoration is like surgery, we evaluate the entire situation. There are many situations where people come to us after going to others who have told them that they cannot restore their items and we are able to do it.”

Recently, the company was responsible for the cleaning and restoration of Saint Vartan Armenian Cathedral. Madame Paulette cleaned and restored the church’s vintage artifacts, including the furniture, rugs and carpets. They also specialized preparation and maintenance of Melania’s Christian Dior Couture wedding gown to insure perfection on the day of her wedding to Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago estate.

fit for an organization like this. Sometimes, when your pride and joy of a garment needs altering or fixing, you need to bring it to the best and to the next level of service and tailoring. When you want the service from a trustworthy company to enter your home and keep it to your standards, need a concierge or driver, or just about anything when it comes to cleaning and maintaining perfection, Madame Paulette is a company to contact. You can call them at 212-838-6827 or you can visit their Web site at madamepaulette.com.