Brand has expanded its east London operation using air, tapwater and detergent to get stains and muck off fabric trainers
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The world increasingly lives in trainers.
Rewind 20 years and a typical Tube train on a weekday would be filled with commuters in smart leather shoes.
This was the boom time for cobblers and manufacturers of shoe polish.
But the world turns. The pandemic accelerated a process that was already well underway.
A more casual attitude to clothing in many workplaces has now found its feet – for comfort, for style and for simple economic reasons, the trainer has won out.
The logic of having a completely separate wardrobe for work and play, when so many industries no longer demand it is faltering.
But that also leaves us with a problem.
While a brush and a pot of polish were enough to refresh a pair of brogues, sneakers come in a much wider variety of styles and materials, providing a greater challenge when it comes to cleaning.
One might spend a painstaking evening with an old toothbrush, purchase an esoteric collection of products for the purpose or chuck them in a washing machine in a pillowcase – the latter not great for either the footwear or the appliance.
But there are other options. Recently opened in Canary Wharf, W’air Sneaker Laundry offers services specifically tailored to shoes featuring fabrics in their design – elements that are especially prone to staining.
It all started with a machine developed to clean clothes.
the origin: W’air Sneaker Laundry
“The device started life at Unilever, where it was designed before being picked up by Pilot Lite Ventures, which launched it as the world’s first eco-friendly handheld fabric care device,” said Kate Rixon, retail lead at W’air Sneaker Laundry.
“It uses cold tapwater and air with a bit of detergent, so it got its name as a blend of water and air.
“I’d spent 30 years working for retail giant Arcadia until it went into administration in 2021 and joined Pilot Lite as a consultant.”
Initially, Kate sold the W’air services into retail businesses such as Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, using it to spot clean stains and refresh garments in their stores.
“The whole ethos of W’air is sustainability,” said Kate.
“Garments in shops can get stained from children’s sticky fingers, make-up and even blood.
“Historically, those might be sent to landfill if they weren’t cleaned. W’air is about preventing that and also about reducing water use.
“Often garments don’t need washing, the stain just needs to be removed.
“The W’air device only uses cold water and air plus a mild detergent which gives clothes a fresh smell so you’re saving on water and electricity.”
Adding another string to the company’s bow, the decision was made to target trainers with a consumer-facing venture.
dipping a toe in
“We decided to diversify into sneaker cleaning and opened a kiosk at Westfield Stratford City to test the market,” said Kate. “Now we’re in Canary Wharf too.
“People are wearing trainers a lot more now, so that’s one reason we went down this route alongside our garment cleaning business.
“The W’air device is a pressure pump and it works a bit like a steam cleaner only with cold water. It flushes out stains on fabric like oil, make-up, red wine and soy sauce.
“Then you just need to let whatever you’re washing dry overnight and it’s ready to go.
“Because there’s a slight fragrance with the detergent, it also refreshes clothes and sneakers, removing any odours without using chemicals like Febreze.”
As operations manager, Oliver Grout is the man charged with running the Canary Wharf and Stratford sites.
Now aged 21, he embarked on a retail career with Waitrose before swapping the supermarket for W’air.
“After training, we started off in Westfield and had a really good year before deciding it would be worth dipping our toes in Canary Wharf,” he said.
“The W’air device is part of our cleaning toolkit – it’s not a magic machine that can get rid of everything.
“But it does an amazing job on fabric trainers including suede and canvas, where the dirt can be embedded.
“It’s a targeted cleaner, and works very well with old stains which might otherwise be difficult to remove with your normal equipment. That’s where it really shines.
“It’s also good at removing excess dirt.
“If you’ve been out in fields with your shoes caked in mud, using a brush can just embed the dirt more deeply in the fabric.”
blasting away
“With the W’air device, you aim it at the dirt and it blasts it up and away from the shoe, rather than smudging it in further,” added Oliver.
“In addition to cleaning, we also offer deoxidisation.
“For example, white soles on trainers can start to bleach from exposure to direct sunlight, so we have machines which will reverse that process and restore the shoes back to their proper colour.
“Having had staff members with connections to Canary Wharf, we thought it would be a good area for our services.
“You get a lot of people passing through the malls whether they live here, work here or are just visiting.
“It’s hard to pinpoint our typical customer, but we see a lot of lifestyle sneakers because they get taken out and worn so much.
“People do bring in shoes that have been lying there for ages or hidden away in cupboards for anything up to a year.
“We won’t always be able to make shoes look like new, but we can smarten them up so they can be worn again.”
W’air recommends purely leather trainers are best taken to the cobbler, as its technology is much more geared towards cleaning fabric.
To that end, the firm also offers spot cleaning for garments and handbags at its sites.
The focus, however, is on trainers and W’air Sneaker Laundry will be popping up outside Waitrose on August 14, 2024, to demonstrate its cleaning powers to Wharfers in more detail.
Alternatively, drop into one of its branches and find out more.
key details: W’air Sneaker Laundry
You can find W’air Sneaker Laundry’s Canary Wharf branch in the mall underneath One Canada Square.
The business is weekdays from 8am-6pm and from 10am on Saturdays and 11am on Sundays with the same closing time.
Standard cleaning services for sneakers start at £30.
The business also has a branch at Westfield Stratford City.
Find out more about the brand here
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- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
