teve Boorstein
really knows clothes and he certainly enjoys talking about
them. Widely known as “The Clothing Doctor,” he recently shared his comprehensive
fashion knowledge in his book, “The Ultimate Guide to
Shopping and Caring for Clothing.” Steve has devoted his
life to understanding clothes and how to best care for them
— carrying on a family tradition that dates back four
generations.
“My grandfather came over from
Russia in the early 1900s,” Steve noted. “His
father was in the cleaning business in the old country.”
When he was eight years old, Steve first began hanging around
his grandfather’s plant in Bethesda, MD, on a regular
basis. “He used to give me rides in laundry
baskets.” When Steve was ten, he began working for his
father, Ed, owner of Prestige... Exceptional Fabricare in
Silver Springs, MD, and the first winner of IFI’s
Meritorious Service Award for Positive Recognition in the
Industry. “Through the years, I kind of worked most
positions — a lot of customer service, in the laundry as
a wash boy. I was kind of a schlepper,” he said.
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The business was successful, but it closed
down in 1976 when the lease on the building ran out. At that
time, Steve found out about a record store for sale in Ann
Arbor, MI.
“I moved up there and scrounged up
some money with a friend and we bought it,” he recalled.
Bonzo Dog Records was a tricky venture for Steve, who
fell victim to bad timing. It was bad enough that 8-tracks and
cassettes were just entering the field of music commerce, but
chain stores like Tower Records and the like were also starting
to pop up everywhere. The store closed in 1978. “The
independent record stores really had to be extremely capable
and very high volume because the market was just
pathetic,” Steve said.
Ironically, Steve’s bad luck with
the record industry led him to a chance to capitalize on good
luck in another. After Bonzo Dog shut down, Steve and his
fiance, Barbara, wanted to open a business together. As a
dancer, Barbara knew it was often difficult to find dance gear
and clothing, so the logical next step was to open First
Position Dancewear and Boutique.
The store was unique at the time, and,
fortunately for Steve and Barbara, the 1980s were just around
the corner. “Aerobics wasn’t a word yet,”
Steve explained. “But it became a word when we owned the
store and so — ching, ching — we got lucky.”
What began as a 300 sq. ft. store expanded into 3,000 sq. ft.
in the next eight years. Despite the success of the store,
Steve began to consider coming back into the drycleaning
industry.
In order to do that, Steve wanted to hone
his cleaning skills by working with friend and mentor John
Splitt, who hailed from Gold Bond Cleaners on the campus of the
University of Michigan. For the next nine months, Steve
trained on the spotting board at 6:30 a.m. before he had to
leave to open First Position at 9 a.m. Additionally, he
completed an IFI correspondence course to round out his skills.
In 1986, Steve and Barbara sold their
store and moved back to the Washington, D.C. area where he
worked at his father’s Prestige plant. After a year, he
moved over to his father’s flagship plant, Parkway
Cleaners, and the two generations worked together for a couple
of years.
ccording to Steve, the secret of success for his
father had always been quite simple: great customer service up
front, good management in the back and raise prices regularly.
“Now there are a lot of cost bureaus and consultants that
will tell you that you must raise your prices regularly,”
Steve said. “My father was kind of a seer. He saw what
was going on and knew that his company was doing excellent work
and that they should have the opportunity to be paid for it.
So, he planted the seeds like that and he made it grow like
that.” When Steve purchased Parkway Cleaners in 1993, he
carried on his father’s tradition, but added his own
experience, as well. Buying and selling clothes had given him
some additional insight. “I had a lot of empathy for
customers and retailers,” he said. “I knew what
they were up against dealing with returns and manufacturers. I
had learned something very, very clearly about people and that
is: they are passionate about their clothing. I realized that
people spend too much money on their clothing to not take care
of it.” The most satisfying aspect of Steve’s job
was that he had a great forum to help people with clothing
issues. “I felt that I could make a difference. It was at
that point that the Clothing Doctor kind of began,” he
recalled. “I started thinking of myself in that
position.” While it was demanding to manage 38 employees
at Parkway, Steve also took it upon himself to offer clothing
care seminars and write newsletters on the subject. The rest of
his time was spent on the phone answering customers’
questions.
“People were calling me from stores
and saying: ‘Steve, I’m buying a thousand dollar
dress. This is what it’s made of... what do you
think?’” he said. “Every single time my
employees would walk to the office door and look in,
they’d see that phone attached to my ear.”
It’s quite possible that Steve would
still be on the phone in his plant today if he didn’t
like music so much. He vividly recalls a day a couple of years
ago when he visited the Cafe Wah bar in Greenwich Village, NY,
and changed the course of his life.
“I walked in and saw a band that
just blew me away,” he recalled. “I loved them.
Over the next few months, I went to New York ten times.”
He enjoyed the band so much that he decided to make a
documentary on them — even though he had no experience in
the field. He worked hard and eventually finished the project.
“It didn’t get bought, but it
gave me an opportunity to write the whole screenplay,”
Steve said. “After I did that and came back down to Earth
and was back in the cleaning business full time, I realized
that this was me. I wanted to write.” The documentary
experience had sparked a dormant desire within him, and though
his plant kept him extremely busy, Steve spent his spare time
writing his book, “The Ultimate Guide to Shopping and
Caring for Clothing.” “Within six months, I
realized I could not write and work at the same time. I put the
business up for sale,” he said. The store sold in May of
2001 and Steve wrote full time after that.
ver the next 18 months, I poured out just about
everything I knew about shopping and caring for
clothing,” he said. “I amassed over 400 pages. I
shared some of those secrets that retailers, manufacturers and
drycleaners never really pronounced to the public. My goal in
writing the book was to empower and educate people.”
Steve has already begun work on a second
book. “Whereas the first one was more of a bible of
sorts, this one is going to be more topical and
eclectic,” he pointed out.
Steve enjoys the writing lifestyle very
much because it affords him more time to spend with Barbara and
his youngest son Ben. The couple also have an older son, Bryan,
who is following in his father’s footsteps by studying
journalism at East Carolina University.
Steve still finds time to consult and
offer clothing care seminars from time to time and he also
contributes articles on fashion to a variety of magazines,
including In Style, For Women and Maxim. In the near future, he
may be contributing to People magazine, as well as appearing as
a guest on the television talk show The View.
Because writing is so gratifying, Steve
doesn’t intend to return to the drycleaning industry
anytime soon. Yet, he still hopes he can give cleaners a hand.
“All the secrets I’ve known
and learned and shared from the drycleaning industry, I have an
opportunity now to give to the population at large through
something like In Style magazine,” he said.
“I’m going to be using every forum that I get,
every opportunity to meld the relationship between drycleaners
and the clothing industry of manufacturers and
retailers.” Steve also believes that drycleaners should
do their part, as well. “I think the best way that
drycleaners can improve is to improve their customer service so
they make sure they have the opportunity to teach their
customers about the care of clothing.
“Cleaners have to keep pace with
what’s going on in the current fashion so that if they
are knowledgeable with what’s out there and what people
are buying, they can continue education with their staff. At
the same time, they can educate their customers. It’s all
one harmonious goal.”
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