An economic clothes call

Dry cleaners say their business slowdown mirrors the nation's

Miriam Goncalvez puts a pair of pants on a topper, while another is steam-pressed on a legger at Dependable Cleaners in Milton. (Photos by Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)

Three months ago, Arthur C. Anton, Jr., chief operating officer of one of the largest dry cleaning firms in Massachusetts, Anton's Cleaners, began noticing a change in the condition of the garments coming into his stores.

"They're more wrinkled," he said.

As a struggling nation tries to eke one (or several) more wearings out of garments before dry cleaning them, the behind-the-knee and elbow creases have become more pronounced, Anton said, and rings around the collars have gotten darker.

"You might take that pair of pants and maybe you'll hang it up instead of having it cleaned right away," he said.

Number crunchers, in other words, aren't the only ones with a bead on the economy. Dry cleaners have predictive tools of their own. Think of it as the Crumpled Index, or the sartorial equivalent of Google's new flu tracking tool, which may be able to pick up regional outbreaks a week to 10 days before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports them.

Indeed, in July, months before the National Bureau of Economic Research declared the United States was in a recession (on Dec. 1), the president of Dependable Cleaners predicted the economy was headed for trouble. "I noticed the amount of clothing that hadn't been picked up had grown by 30 percent compared with July 2007," Christa Hagearty said, attributing the drop-off to high gas and home heating oil prices. "I said, 'This is going to get worse.' "

Customers had begun waiting, on average, 10 days instead of the usual five to pick up their orders, she said. It makes sense. After all, dry cleaning doesn't come cheap. At the family-owned Dependable chain, for example, prices range from $6.99 to $7.70 to dry clean a pair of pants, $6.15 to $8 for a blouse, and $14.50 to $16.30 for a suit.

In an attempt to minimize the backlog, the company started requiring deposits on big-ticket items, and managers began placing friendly reminder calls to customers.

"Most of the time we got answering machines," Hagearty said. Some brave enough to answer said they'd pick up some of the clothing now, some later, a strategy Hagearty empathizes with.

"We absolutely understand that everyone is struggling with what they can afford today and what they can afford for next week," she said.

In yet another (dry cleaning) indicator of tough times, some of the clothing being picked up - or left to languish - is of lower quality than it once was, according to Peter Blake, executive vice president of the North East Fabricare Association, in Reading. Designer labels have given way to the next tier, he said.

Then, of course, there's the biggest indicator of all: The dry cleaning business in the state is off about 5 to 15 percent from last year, Blake said, and about 5 percent of dry cleaning outlets have closed. Asked if dry cleaning is underappreciated today, Blake turned nostalgic.

"This is a personal opinion," the 40-year-old said, "but I don't think people know what quality is anymore. People have lost appreciation for a service that's professionally done. People are dressing down all the time now. My father used to wear a suit and tie to church every week."

But as the recession tightens its grip, people are cutting back wherever they can. "Dry cleaning seems like such a waste of money," Sheila Davis, 43, a nurse practitioner, said as she shopped at TJ Maxx. "It's $50 or $60 every time you go, and it's not like you get new clothes."

Davis, of Brookline, is among those delaying visits to the dry cleaners, and even tried a home dry cleaning kit, but in the end, she always returns to the professionals. "It's money down the tubes, but you have to do it."