Why Luxury Brands Don’t Explain Fabric Care

If you’ve ever invested in a luxury garment - silk, linen, wool, something beautifully made, you’ll know how this feels.

The time has come to wash your expensive new fabulous item, you turn to the care label, expecting guidance. Instead, you’re met with the same three words:

'Dry Clean Only'

No explanation.
No insight into the fabric.
No help on how to actually look after the thing you’ve just paid some seriously good money for.

And why does this seem to always happen?

The honest answer is one most brands don’t like to say out loud.

The real reason luxury brands default to “dry clean only”

Contrary to popular belief, “dry clean only” is often less about what’s best for the fabric and far more about what’s safest for the brand.

Luxury fashion labels design beautiful, high-quality garments but once those pieces leave the store, care advice often becomes more about risk management than thoughtful guidance. Fabric care can be presented as far more complicated than it actually is, and brands know that customers have varying levels of experience. Rather than offering clear, practical instructions, many choose the safest option for themselves.

By defaulting to “dry clean only,” brands reduce the chance of complaints, refunds, or disputes if something goes wrong, even when that advice isn’t necessarily the best long-term solution for the garment itself.

From a brand perspective, recommending professional 'dry cleaning':

• Limits liability

• Avoids having to explain detailed practical fabric-specific care processes

• Reduces the risk of customer error

• Creates a simple, defensible position if something goes wrong

In short, suggesting a garment is “dry clean only” is an easy fix, simple to standardise and legally safe. It's a quick way to wash their hands of any recourse.

We understand why brands choose the safest option for themselves. But when that choice consistently adds cost, inconvenience, and environmental impact, without necessarily being the best option for the fabric, it’s worth questioning.

That’s the part most brands don’t explain

Why “Dry Clean Only” Isn’t Always the Best Long-Term Solution

Dry cleaning has its place. Some garments genuinely require it, particularly very bulky or oversized pieces, heavily structured items, or garments that are just too difficult to manage in a home setting.

But the reality is the majority of items labelled “dry clean only” can be washed at home when you understand the fabric and use the right approach.

When you start Dry Cleaning all the time, especially for beautiful natural fibres, it can actually be detrimental to the very longevity you paid for.

Repeated dry cleaning can:

• Strip natural oils from fibres

• Dull silk and weaken its structure

• Reduce the softness and resilience of wool and cashmere

• Stress seams, linings and fine construction

• Shorten the overall lifespan of a garment

And it’s not just about the fabric.

Dry cleaning is expensive. It’s time-consuming. It requires extra trips, planning, and ongoing cost. And it’s often environmentally unfriendly,  with repeated chemical processing having a far greater long-term impact not just on your wardrobe, but on the planet as well.

Understanding when dry cleaning is genuinely necessary and when it isn’t is one of the simplest ways to care for quality garments better.

What matters more than the care label: the fabric itself

Luxury garments are often made from natural fibres, and natural fibres behave very differently from synthetics.

Treating everything the same or outsourcing care (at the Dry Cleaners) without understanding what a fabric actually needs is where damage begins.

Here’s some different fabrics and what most care labels don’t tell you.

Silk

Silk is a protein fibre. It’s strong, but sensitive.

Repeated exposure to harsh cleaning methods or unsuitable detergents can:

• reduce its natural sheen (it looks dull)

• dry out and weaken the fibre (you can no longer glide your hand over the fabric)

• cause brittleness over time (softness is gone)

• compromises the shape (damages the drape, it can lose it's luxe aesthetic)

Silk doesn’t need aggressive cleaning,  it needs curated, gentle care.

Wool & Cashmere

Wool fibres have microscopic scales that react to heat, agitation and chemistry.

Improper care can lead to:

• felting or shrinkage

• loss of softness and loft

• permanent distortion

Once wool is damaged, it cannot be restored.

Linen (Flax)

Linen is incredibly durable — but brittle when wet.

Incorrect washing can:

• break fibres

• exaggerate creasing

• weaken seams

• distort the garment’s silhouette

Linen ages beautifully when supported properly. It deteriorates quickly when it isn’t.

Luxury Cotton

Not all cotton is created equal.

High-quality cotton is often long-staple and finely woven. Harsh detergents and over-cleaning can strip fibres prematurely, leading to dullness, fading and loss of structure.

It’s not just fabric, it’s craftsmanship too

High end well-made garments, those investment pieces you love, should not only be defined by the quality of the materials they use but of course, by how well they are made.

Fine stitching, hand-finished seams, linings, facings and trims all respond differently to stress. Harsh cleaning, heat, steam and generic detergent compounds don't just affect the fabric, it also compromises the construction.

This is another reason brands default to “dry clean only”: most do not take the time to explain how craftsmanship behaves under washing conditions because it requires more effort to explain some of the additional considerations and they can be perceived as complex (even when in reality they really are not) and complexity increases risk. 

They Are Lying To You - Yes You Can Care For Luxury Garments At Home 

What fancy labels and high end luxury brands rarely explain is that many garments labelled “dry clean only” can be cared for safely at home. 

Proper fabric care allows for:

• cool or cold water washing

• low agitation and less wear and tear.

• fabric-appropriate curated laundry care products

• reduced environmental impact

• lower long-term cost per wash, putting money back in your pocket

But this requires understanding - not falsehoods.

This is where fabric-specific care becomes important. Specialist brands like Bon Savvy exist to support this exact gap, providing especially crafted formulas designed for the needs of specific fabrics like silk, wool, delicates, baby wear, lingerie, swim wear and performance/sports fabrics, rather than a one-size-fits-all solution..

The goal is to provide access to the kind of expert grade care your garment needs so you can confidently skip the dry cleaners and do it yourself at home. These days there is smart fashion care, like Bon Savvy that exists to provide more intelligent, tailored, cost effective care options, with a far greater respect for the materials you’ve invested in. 

Fabric care should help you - Not protect brands

High end fashion labels and Luxury clothing isn’t fragile. It’s intentional. Or at least, it should be.

Beautiful fabrics, careful construction, considered detail. And when you understand what those fabrics actually need, they don’t have to feel intimidating or be sent straight to the dry cleaners.

The reality is many high-end brands rely on “dry clean only” because it’s the easiest and frankly, the laziest answer. It’s simple. It’s legally safe. And it shifts responsibility away from the brand once the garment leaves the store.

But things are starting to change.

In parts of Europe, particularly France, there’s a growing push for fashion brands to be more transparent about their supply chains and not just about how clothes are made but how they should be cared for after they’re sold. That means clearer guidance, better education, and more responsibility for a garment’s life beyond the hanger.

Australia isn’t there yet and it needs to be.

If we genuinely want to reduce waste and the fashion industry’s impact on landfill, it’s not enough to encourage people to buy better quality clothing. We also need to help consumers care for those garments properly. Too many brands still say “dry clean only” without offering any kind of meaningful guidance, even when customers are paying top dollar.

The sad fact is Luxury doesn’t automatically mean thoughtful. And price alone doesn’t equal good corporate citizenship (by the fashion label companies themselves).

Slapping “dry clean only” on a care label is more-often-than-not a total cop-out, one that protects big brands more than supporting the people buying their clothes. If garments are sold as investments, brands should help consumers care for them like the investment they really are.