This post was written by Lindy Shopper.
As a follow up on my Taking Care of Your Vintage Clothing post, I’m re-posting an article written in 2000 by Kathleen Keifer of the U.S. Department of the Interior entitled “Dry Cleaning Museum Textiles.” (The link is a PDF, it may ask you to download.) While the focus here is museums, many of the same issues arise in museum textiles as in vintage clothing.
The important thing to cull from this article is the process of analysis. Most of us may have picked up a vintage garment and don’t know much about it. This article gives you a comprehensive process about assessing the garment’s viability for cleaning, information about dry cleaning processes, how to select a dry cleaner, and what to discuss with your dry cleaner. While you may not need the process outlined in this brochure for every garment, when you do encounter a garment that leaves you baffled as to how to clean it, you will know what the professionals would do by consulting this handy guide.
Lindy Shopper 
Good article and information. Thanks for posting.
Thanks for this post! Always on the look-out for good cleaning advice.
I have a vintage piece, from my Mom actually, which she remembers it being dry clean only (the tags have faded). It is very sturdy and not at all fragile (from the 80’s so not that old either). However, my local dry cleaners (I went to 3) will not take it at all because it is too ‘high risk’. It is very frustrating. One of the dry cleaners staff recommended I hang it in a steamy bathroom to ‘clean’ it, and that is what I do.