You want your suit to look its best every time you wear it.
It all starts with making sure your jacket is on an appropriately sized hanger. If the hanger is too big, it will push the shoulders out, and they will get more wrinkled.
If the hanger is too small, then the shoulders will droop over the edges of the hanger and get wrinkled in that way. If the hanger is “just right,” then it provides protection to the shoulders and prevents wrinkling.
What else can you do to spruce up your suit? How do you clean a suit jacket?
Let’s first talk about why dry cleaners are problematic. Then we will describe a simple 3-step process to de-wrinkle your suit using steam at home, followed by scenarios in which a dry cleaner does make sense.
Dry Cleaning: not to be overused
It’s easy to get into a cycle that involves the significant use of dry cleaning as a measure to get the suit especially sharp and crisp for that important event.
However, the dry cleaner is the biggest problem of a men’s suit store. You should not dry clean more than once every three or four months. The only time you should ever dry clean a suit is when it is dirty or it smells.
Why is the dry cleaner such an issue for a custom suit?
It has to do with how the suit is pressed. Often, the dry cleaning staff will lay the suit down with the lapel in an imperfect position. When the lapel is pressed at that spot, the crease will be in the wrong place.
You will have two creases, the original and the new one. Despite that new crease, the suit will keep trying to conform to the original crease since that’s its natural shape.
If fabrics are not as high-quality (never the case with us), and especially in the case of solid fabric, too much heat will eventually cause it to shine and bubble or pucker.
The way that low-quality fabrics will respond to dry-cleaning indicates just how harsh the process is for the material. Drycleaning, in general, is bad for suits.
Simple 3-step suit de-wrinkling and dry cleaning suit at home
You get a suit, and it looks great when you walk out the door. By the end of the day, though, it gets all wrinkled. What are you to do?
Here is a simple 3-step process to de-wrinkle your suit at home:
- 1. Take the suit into the bathroom. Turn the hot water on in your shower.
- 2. Hang the jacket up anywhere, perhaps on the shower rod. Just make sure that it doesn’t get wet.
- 3. Hang the pants from the bottoms on a clip hanger. The weight of the waistband coupled with the steam coming from the hot water in the shower will take out all those wrinkles that you get, in the inner thigh area in particular.
Can you iron a suit to de-wrinkle?
The steps noted above is the best way to de-wrinkle a suit. The steam from the shower will take the wrinkles right out of any kind of average to higher-quality fabrics. You won’t need to further iron your suit.
Special cases and advice on choosing a dry cleaner
It is a little trickier if you get caught in the rain. Those wrinkles probably will not come out in the bathroom. In that event, take it to the dry cleaner, but tell them to press it.
Pressing is not using any kind of chemicals during the process. Pressing also is not wonderful – but every once in a while, a garment needs to get pressed, if not only to get back the natural crease that a pant will have.
Are hand-dry cleaners or classic laundromat-type dry cleaners preferable? The hand dry cleaners are so ferociously expensive, and they don’t really do that much better a job. You’re eventually going to have a problem with any dry cleaner. It’s just a matter of time. So just accept it – it’s like traffic or anything else. Just try to take it to the dry cleaner as infrequently as possible and dry clean your suit at home.
How does fabric choice relate to wrinkling?
Tell your tailor upfront that you are interested in fabrics that have a tendency to wrinkle less. After all, one of the best ways to de-wrinkle a fabric is to buy a garment that does not wrinkle in the first place!
Generally, fabrics from English mills will have a tendency to wrinkle less because they’re slightly heavier. Anything 9 to 11 ounces can still be considered a year-round fabric and will wrinkle less than 8 to 9 ounces – which are typically marketed as year-round fabrics but really are not.
The heavier fabrics will wrinkle less and, even more importantly, will hang out a lot more quickly than the Italian, domestic, and certainly off-shore fabrics.
You certainly do not want a fabric that has any kind of blend. Polyester? Yes, it’s true that it will wrinkle less. But it will feel like cardboard up against your body.
The one exception is mohair. While 100% mohair is going to be too “cardboard-y,” as long as you’re 15% or under on the mohair content, you should be good to go.
Choose a bespoke tailor who uses only the best garments
You can see above that you can remove wrinkles and clean your suit at home simply by choosing a high-quality garment.
Do you want a fine custom suit that is the very best available anywhere?
At Alan David Custom, we are pleased to offer new clients an extremely attractive incentive off our already low everyday values. See our First Time Buyer’s Discounts.
About the Author: Alan Horowitz
Alan Horowitz is the owner of Alan David Custom. Having grown up in the custom tailoring business, Alan values taking care of his clients and always going above and beyond to ensure 100% satisfaction. Alan David Custom has become the best custom tailor in New York City. Alan is a 4th generation tailor with an expertise in measuring and pattern making.
