FRANK SWERTLOW
Staff Reporter
Herb Reston likes to dress well, even to the point of coordinating his ties exactly with his suits and sport coats. He has a problem, though. One of his favorite ties, a chocolate-brown Zegna, has come apart at the seams. To replace it, he’ll have to spend at least $120, assuming he can still find its exact shade to match his outfits.
But there is an alternative Movieland Tie Service, which has been cleaning, repairing and rejuvenating men’s ties for nearly 45 years. This tiny Beverly Center-area shop has become the ER of cravats, a small company that has found a niche and successfully exploited it for decades.
“I usually bring in my ties when they have spots on them,” Reston said. “They are experts at repair.”
Movieland is so well known that dry cleaners around town send their customers’ battered and dirty neckwear to these tie doctors.
“They know how to do it the old-fashioned way,” said Stephen Green, who owns Carriage Trade Cleaners in Sherman Oaks and Brentwood and Regal Cleaners in Pacific Palisades. “Most cleaners just throw a tie into the cleaning machine, and it doesn’t come out too good. And the more expensive the tie, the worse it looks.”
What Movieland does, he said, is to completely detach the silk from its inner facing, lay it on a table and clean the tie on both sides to remove a stain. The tie is then returned to its original facing, giving it a brand-new look. New facing, he said, usually ruins the tie because it doesn’t always fit exactly.
“GQ magazine once said that ties are not meant for dry cleaning,” Green said. “They said just wear the tie and throw it away when it’s dirty. They obviously didn’t know about Movieland. This is the best tie house west of the Mississippi.”
So fabled is Movieland that it is not uncommon for someone from England to drop by the shop with a suitcase filled with ties. The company also has clients in New York, Chicago and Las Vegas. One customer in Hong Kong heard about the service and began bringing his ties to the L.A. shop.
Indeed, there are shelves filled with repaired and cleaned ties most carrying such designer names as Armani, Hermes, Polo, Sulka, Yves St. Laurent, Feragamo, Hugo Boss, Zegna, Gucci, Carroll & Co. and Versace. The most popular ties to be cleaned and repaired are the French-made Hermes and Italian-made Armani.
On a recent afternoon, a blue Hermes tie, originally made in 1982, was so badly worn at the tip that it had holes in it. To make the repair, the problem areas were trimmed away. The inner facing also was trimmed to fit the newly altered silk and the tie was re-sewn. The price: $7.50. A new Hermes tie retails for about $130.
To clean a tie is $4. To widen a narrow tie is $20. Narrowing is $9.50, lengthening is $8.50, and shortening is $5.
“It’s good value,” said Tobe Karns, who has been a customer for the past decade. “We don’t throw away our old ties.”
Movieland Tie Service was established in 1955; the current owners, Rosa Mora and Jaime Lorenzana, took over the shop in 1992. Rosa’s two sisters, Carmen Mora and Teresa Mora Lorenzana, who is Jaime’s wife, run the shop and were trained by the previous owner Jean Carlin Baty.
“I always wanted things to be picture perfect,” said Baty, who bought Movieland in 1962. “I trained them and when I wanted to retire, I didn’t have to train the new owners. They were hard workers and honest.”
Baty banked on that honesty. She sold her shop for $50,000, and has been receiving regular payments for the business ever since.
Due to the specialized nature of Movieland’s niche, revenues this year are expected to be a very modest $42,000, up from about $35,000 in 1997.
Despite the low numbers, Teresa said the family still ekes out a profit once rent and expenses are deducted. Her husband, who works at a cleaning supply store, is the principal wage earner in her family. Sister Carmen also has another job that helps support the business.
One trend expected to help Movieland is the acceleration of designer-tie prices in recent years. Moreover, despite L.A.’s longstanding preference for the casual look, men are paying more attention than ever to maintaining their wardrobes and beloved ties, Lorenzana said.
“Men love their ties,” she said. “They like to keep them, especially the ones given to them as gifts.”
Five Tips For Preserving A Tie.
1. Don’t put a tie into a washing machine.
2. Always hang it up. Stacking ties in a drawer creates unwanted folds.
3. Never rub a stain. It fades the tie’s colors.
4. Never spray cologne on a tie. That also fades the color.
5. Never tie a knot too tight. Doing so will pull the thread away from the silk when unknotting it.
