We started because we were tired of rushing to the dry cleaner.
Twenty-seven years later, we’re still family-owned, still in the Bay Area, and still building our whole business around one thing: your time.
A family business, since 1999.
In 1999, our dad and his best friend got tired of racing to the dry cleaner before it closed. So they started PurpleTie together.
Two business partners, one idea, and a lot of late-night deliveries. They built PurpleTie around a simple promise: we come to you, so you never have to come to us.
Twenty-five years later, our dad’s best friend retired, and we stepped in. We’re Shayan and Elias, and we grew up around this business. Now we’re running it alongside our dad as the next generation.
Still family-run, still local, and still serving the Bay Area from San Francisco and the Peninsula to the East Bay and South Bay. We’re glad you’re here.
The first online dry cleaning service in the nation started as a part-time experiment.
Before there were apps, our founders were taking dry cleaning orders over the internet and delivering them by hand. The response was so strong that the experiment quickly became a full-time job.
Read the 1999 SFGate articleThree things we won’t compromise on.
Customer service
Our customers know they can depend on us before, during, and after every order. We took an industry riddled with horror stories and turned it on its ear. Reliability, responsibility, and accountability are the words we live by.
Quality
Unlike the typical cleaner, we promise an unconditional satisfaction guarantee on both the quality of our work and the timeliness of our pickups and deliveries. If anything is ever less than right, we will do whatever it takes to fix it.
Convenience
We come to you instead of making you find time to come to us. Between our @Home and @Work programs, there are more ways and places to use PurpleTie than most people expect.
Since 1999, one errand at a time.
In the beginning
Originally founded as CleanSleeves, PurpleTie started as a part-time experiment to test a revolutionary idea in the fabric-care industry: the first online dry cleaning service in the nation to offer internet-based, on-demand pickup and delivery of dry cleaning and laundry.
The consumer response was tremendous. What started as an experiment soon turned into full-time jobs for our founders.
@Work is born
Customers got hooked on the convenience of home service and helped us branch into a brand-new market: onsite cleaning for employees at their office. HR managers quickly saw how we could help their people strike that elusive work/life balance.
Our @Work program launched quietly, to rave reviews and word-of-mouth growth that carried us to becoming the largest @Work provider in the industry.
How we became PurpleTie
Our founders landed in a classic David and Goliath story. A competing company called PurpleTie entered the identical business and market, backed by venture capitalists and wealthy investors who planned to own the market in a big way.
David won again. PurpleTie folded, CleanSleeves purchased its assets, and we rebranded as the new and improved PurpleTie in March 2001.
Acquisitions
- March 2001CleanSleeves purchased the assets of PurpleTie and introduced the new PurpleTie.
- October 2004We acquired Pressing Business, a competing @Work service provider.
- March 2006We acquired Silicon Valley Cleaners, another competing @Work and @Home provider.
The year we went green
We launched initiatives to make us environmentally accountable in every area of the business: a 100% perc-free cleaning process, efficient lighting and steam generation, a recycling and reuse program for nearly all our hangers and plastic bags, and a carbon offset program to bring our fleet to a zero carbon footprint.
COVID and beyond
COVID rocked our world, but we’re still standing. We had just moved into our bigger and better headquarters that very month (think Disneyland of garment care), so there was no time to celebrate.
Instead we scrambled, made some very tough decisions, and pivoted quickly to a broader @Home offering. Thanks to our loyal customers, by 2022 we were back on stable footing.
The next generation
After 25 years of building PurpleTie side by side, our dad’s best friend and business partner retired. In his place, brothers Shayan and Elias joined the family business.
We grew up around the vans, the plant, and the late-night routes. Now we’re here to carry PurpleTie into the future, with the same promise our dad made in 1999.
We own every part of the business.
From the electric vans at your curb to the facility where your clothes are cleaned, we own and operate every step in between. Nothing gets handed to a partner, so quality, care, price, and accountability never leave our hands.
Our electric fleet
We own and operate our electric delivery fleet, which means cleaner air along the Bay Area routes we drive every day.
Since September 2025
Our facility
One state-of-the-art facility in Hayward cleans every order. Your garments are never sent out to a third party.
Our people
PurpleTie drivers, pressers, and tailors handle your clothes from doorstep to doorstep. They are our people, not contractors.
We’ve taken green to a whole new level.
Every order is cleaned with our 100% perc-free process, then picked up and delivered by our own electric delivery fleet. You get the best cleaning experience with the least environmental impact, without paying extra for it.
100% perc-free
Our dry cleaning process is free of perchloroethylene. It is better for your health, the air we breathe, and the ground water below our feet, with no compromise in how clean your clothes get.
Fewer plastic bags
Your first order comes with a permanent, reusable PurpleTie bag with a barcoded name tag. Need one? Write “provide me with a permanent bag” with your next order.
Hangers, reused and recycled
We reuse or recycle every metal hanger, so none of them end up in a landfill. Send your extras back with your next order and we’ll take it from there.
We’ll never lose that focus.
Thanks to our loyal customers, we keep growing through nearly 100% word-of-mouth referrals. No one knows what the future holds, but you can count on us to keep being of service whenever and wherever it’s convenient for you, no matter how far we spread our wings.
Is today good?
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Whether at home or at the office, get started with PurpleTie in under two minutes.