Dec 11

Dec 11 Spin Cycles

Photos by Marc Alt | Styling: Sally England | Hair & Make Up: Em Stoltz

Clothes: Ali Golden, Model: Maddison Dennie

I had an in-unit washer and dryer just once in Brooklyn when I was roughly twenty-six, living in a two-bed, two-bath "luxury" unit I shared with four adults and three cats. That apartment, converted into a two-point-five bed with the addition of a flimsy temporary wall, was a steal at $3,200 per month. We moved in sometime in the winter of '08/09, just after the financial collapse, seizing the opportunity to move to a more convenient neighborhood (East Williamsburg) and to have a little outdoor space and a pair of stackable Whirpools. For context, that same apartment was listed for $7,400 per month this past July. For further context, a three-bedroom at the Mallory Way cottage court in Ojai hit the market in the past couple of weeks at $2,950 (it seems to have been rented). For even more context, take a look at some current three-bedroom listings in Ojai.

I'm nineteen or twenty years old; I live at my parents'. My job is to pick up laundry and dry cleaning from the Mainline and bring it to a facility some twenty-five miles away. Then I take it back down to the Mainline. I have three routes and no business driving anything in a professional capacity, considering my…spicy record.

I am in an enormous white van, somewhere north of Philly, guided only by a book of handwritten directions to places with names leftover from Welsh Quakers. There are no cell phones. I am chased — weekly — by a poodle in Bala Cynwood. I pick up envelopes with the clothes containing much-appreciated end-of-year tips. I'll leave it at that. You don't want to hear about the broken axle on Christmas Eve.

In the Gilded Age, the mansions of the Mainline were so chock full of domestic employees that the main occupation listed in the area was "laundress."

WOOL TRENCH COAT $396 | ALBER T-BAR LOAFER $550

I am twenty-nine years old. My laundry room is in the creepy basement of an old sewing factory on McKibben Street in Bushwick. The machines are always down. Rent is $1,850 monthly for a 600-square-foot space with two mostly open sleeping lofts. The guy who lived in the half bedroom at "The Espoir" in East Williamsburg still lives with my boyfriend and me. I am fed up with a lot of things. When I move out after two years, I rent the apartment for $2,500 a month with a 15% commission.

I am thirty-three and living in Greenpoint with my husband in a walk-up, six-family co-op building. It is $2,100 per month. I walk our clothes to the laundromat. I quickly learn that drop-off is the answer; the laundry comes back folded into cubes, and the laundress is hilarious.

I am thirty-one and about to get married. I am living in a nicely appointed building a block from McCarren Park. There is laundry down the hall. It is $2,450.

MERINO RIBBED SWEATER $275 | SILK FLY FRONT PANT WITH POCKETS $187

I am thirty-four. My husband and I are considering buying a home in Upstate New York. This is what a lot of our friends have been up to — buying fixer-uppers, driving each weekend to check a pipe for freezing, or to redo a floor. There are a lot of reports of driveway shoveling, oil bill shenanigans, and other tribulations. It doesn't feel like it's for us.

I am twenty-three, living in an apartment building on Ventura Street in Ojai. It is $1,000 per month for two bedrooms. I have a roommate. The building's laundry room is in the courtyard. I work at Farmer and the Cook, the store's opener and oatmeal maker, and my downstairs neighbors yell at me for "stomping around" at 6 am.

I am forty, and I am back visiting Brooklyn. My laundromat is gone. I remember crying when I said goodbye to the laundress before moving to Ojai. I was crying a lot those days. Two years later, nothing has taken its place.

I am thirty-six, and I got the last affordable house in Ojai (a joke I still tell even though I know it's not funny). I do my own laundry at my own speed.

The American Dream. Every week. All the time, laundry.

I am forty-two and have just seen the most beautiful girl at Westridge and am now looking for a location for a photo shoot. I meet Jim Anderson at Royal Cleaners to discuss using the coin-op next door. Jim recently took over the 40-year-old businesses providing eco-friendly dry cleaning and "VIP laundry service." Jim's cool; he's from New York, too. He was in fashion, which I studied. We like a lot of the same music. We know a lot of the same people (Ali Golden goes to Jim). He tells me about the Patrick Nagel prints he was gifted by Jennifer Dumas herself. They live up on the walls now, something to see for sure. I remember the cube of neatly folded laundry I would pick up in Greenpoint. Royal Cleaners does a pick-up and drop-off service (same day, free pressing). I try to picture myself with a poodle.

Thanks to an incredible team, including my HMUA ride-or-die Em Stoltz of Little Koyote Salon, the very stylish Sally England, and the unparalleled Marc Alt. Thanks to Nicholas Weissman for helping me make some tough calls on what ended up being a hundred gorgeous photos. Maddison Dennie, you have no business being this talented. Erin Dennie, you’ve got a good one. Ali Golden, we are so lucky to have you in Ojai. And extra thanks to Jim Anderson of Royal Cleaners for letting us in.