FABRIC Washable offshoot of suede proves alluring

Sales are up, but customers are still wary of washing it.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
CHICAGO -- A hide that isn't kept dry? Washable suede has its share of skeptics.
But they're buying anyway.
Supplies of it have thinned at several points in the city and beyond -- the Eddie Bauer store on Chicago's Michigan Avenue had a single Seattle Suede skirt left a couple of weeks ago, for instance, and a catalog representative told a caller that its cache had been cleaned out.
Displaying his new Newport Harbor suede shirt jacket to a visitor, Kevin Donahue, 40, a health-care consultant, balked when asked if he would wash it for the sake of a Chicago Tribune experiment. First off, it's brown, and it wasn't dirty. But there was something else, despite the labels' assurances.
"I believe them," he said, "but ..."
Real appeal
Mary Conrad, an advertising consultant in her 40s who was surveying a rack of Bernardo washable suede jackets at Nordstrom downtown a couple weeks ago, employed perhaps the operative word in this concept's appeal (the emphasis is ours):
"I love the idea of being able to throw it in the wash and go," she said. "Typically -- and I own a couple of real suede jackets -- you take it to the cleaners, it's gone for weeks, it's very expensive, and then it comes back and doesn't even feel the same."
Washable suede -- and we're talking real leather, not Ultrasuede -- has been around for a few seasons at Eddie Bauer, said Engle Saez, senior vice president and chief marketing officer. But it has blown out of stores this year.
"We're doing tremendously well with the shirt jackets," said Gregg Andrews, Nordstrom's fashion director for eastern regions. "Everyone always thought suede was something fragile that we couldn't wear every day because it required a high amount of care. It's not delicate any longer."
Can't tell difference
The reason people are suspicious, Andrews said, is that you can't feel the difference between it and the original.
Exactly, said Stuart Pollack, CEO of Bernardo, a manufacturer in New York that set to work perfecting washable suede about three years ago. Other manufacturers' processes and washing instructions vary. But the magic lies in retaining the oil in the hide after washing, Pollack said.
He wouldn't detail Bernardo's methods but mentioned German chemicals in the tanning process and machine drying as critical on the tail end for suppleness. His company also specifically recommends Woolite for its washable suede pants, jackets and skirts. "We needed something that had no bleach and no enzymes," he said.
Earth tones remain dominant, but colors now cover the rainbow.
"In Year 1, total retail sales we generated for the product was about $300,000," Pollack said. "Last year sales were in excess of $150 million for the product. Now, with people copying us, product sales are $200 million."
What will they think of next? They already have: washable leather. It's out in small quantities this year for the first time, Pollack said. (Unlike the suede, the leather can't be machine-dried).
"Next year," predicted Libby Maul, Narrative department manager at Nordstrom on Michigan Avenue, "it will be what washable suede is this year."