The down atelier — Cape Town
Specialist cleaning, restoration and re-proofing for down jackets — inspected seam by seam, washed in down-specific chemistry, and returned at full loft.
Nikwax Down Wash — never a household detergent.
Low heat and long cycles, hand-checked throughout.
Care label, trims, seams and stains all checked.
Why a specialist
A good down jacket is a R6,000 to R12,000 piece of engineering, and down is the finest insulation ever made — as well as the easiest to ruin. Household detergent strips the natural oils that give each cluster its spring. Dry-cleaning solvents wreck it. High heat cooks it flat and can delaminate the shell's water-repellent finish. All three happen, quietly, in an ordinary laundry. We exist so none of them happen to yours.
Not laundry.
Asset protection.
The process
Drop off by arrangement, or have us collect from your door — included with The Full Treatment. Every garment is logged with its own reference.
Examined seam by seam before anything touches water. Existing wear is noted with you up front, and loose stitching is flagged for repair.
Washed cool in Nikwax Down Wash Direct — chemistry made for down, nothing else — then dried low and slow, hand-checked between cycles until every cluster separates.
Re-proofed where specified, finished, and sent home with its certificate of care: a record of exactly what was done, signed by the hands that did it.
Pricing
Every treatment begins the same way — a seam-by-seam inspection and a wash in down-specific chemistry — and every garment goes home with its certificate of care.
To keep the hand-finishing honest, we take a limited number of garments each week. Off-season down storage is available from R150 a month.
Our guarantee
If your jacket doesn't come back looking and lofting better than when it arrived, we clean it again — free. And if we ever damage a garment in our care, we pay its replacement cost. No questions asked.
A promise that's easy to make because of how rarely we're asked to keep it.
Questions
Yes — it's not washing that ruins down, it's washing it wrong. Dirt and body oils are what slowly kill loft, which is why the gear brands themselves recommend periodic cleaning. What down can't survive is household detergent, dry-cleaning solvent or high heat. We use none of them.
Yes. Because size and condition vary so much, they're quoted individually — send us a photo on WhatsApp and you'll have a price before you commit to anything.
Down can't be rushed — slow, low-heat drying is most of the craft. Standard turnaround is 3 to 5 working days, confirmed when you book.
We note any pre-existing wear with you at inspection, before anything is cleaned, so there are never surprises on either side. Small repairs like loose baffle stitching are included in The Full Treatment.
Cape Town and surrounds. Drop-off is by arrangement, and door-to-door collection and delivery is included with The Full Treatment.
One message is all it takes — tell us what you've got, and we'll take it from there.
Book on WhatsAppPrefer email? Write to hello@letsloftit.co.za