Wealthy customers are feeling abandoned.
Madame Paulette, a luxurious dry-cleaning and wedding dress preservation service in midtown, is facing numerous accusations of misplacing high-value items, including irreplaceable wedding gowns.
This month, influencer Claudia Lee Johnson shared her distress over the loss of her custom Bella Wang wedding dress, which has been missing since 2021 and still hasn’t been located four years later.
“I can never… give my daughter’s wedding dress,” she said tearfully in a video posted on September 19.
Johnson’s situation is just one of many concerning reports of missing or damaged high-end garments linked to luxury services. Yelp reviews show an average rating of 2.6 stars, along with an “F” grade from the Better Business Bureau.
Even well-known brands like Fendi are experiencing issues. Last year, they filed a lawsuit against the service for losing a $110,000 chinchilla coat and a $22,900 mink bomber jacket.
A woman from Greenwich, Connecticut, won a $31,000 ruling against the company this past April when her custom-designed Italian drape was allegedly destroyed.
Kam Saifi, the CEO of Bynext, which acquired Madame Paulette in 2021 after the company went bankrupt, stated that the complaint regarding the drape was “out of our control,” claiming the item had already been damaged by sunlight and worsened by chemical exposure.
Saifi mentioned that the Fendi lawsuit pertains to prior ownership and isn’t reflective of current operations. Nevertheless, online reports indicate more than a dozen personal complaints regarding lost or damaged luxury items.
“In 2021, I entrusted Madame Paulette with $30,000 worth of clothing, and I’ve yet to see them,” another Yelp reviewer noted. A woman from the Upper East Side also reported that her bright pink Valentino dress was inexplicably altered to white.
Additional reviews highlight issues like wedding dresses being delivered to the wrong brides, mysterious stains appearing, and customers being charged for items that weren’t billed to them.
A complaint from 2022 with the Better Business Bureau recounts a missing vintage Christian Dior dress and incidents where items were allegedly ruined after contact with “inappropriate chemicals.”
“They did little to find my dress,” one complaint expressed, adding that the frequency of missing clothing seems very suspicious.
This report did not independently verify the Yelp or Better Business Bureau reviews. Saifi claims that complaints represent a “minimum percentage” of their overall workload.
“In this business, things happen, and if you measure it as a percentage of our work, it’s just a small portion,” he remarked.
He acknowledged that some “items are misunderstood” and mentioned that occasionally, items marked missing have actually been found in customers’ own closets or cleaned elsewhere by their staff.
“Sometimes, it’s out of our control,” he noted.
Amazing news broke recently—Johnson’s wedding dress was actually located in Madame Paulette’s warehouse this week. Following her inquiry, a representative quickly provided a photo of the gown, stating it was in climate-controlled storage and had finally been delivered.
Saifi recalled, “Unfortunately, the name tag was removed during the company consolidation.” When the situation gained traction on social media, staff members were ordered to conduct a thorough search of their large warehouse.
Despite multiple attempts to reach Johnson for her comments, she remained unresponsive.
“This issue isn’t isolated. Even basic dry cleaners face these challenges,” Saifi argued, asserting, “I deny any rental, resale, or misuse of client property.”
He emphasized, “Through our history, we have consistently maintained the highest standards of care, integrity, and customer service.”
