Last time I ironed something was for a job interview
It’s understandable they’d want to see your technique.
Ironing clothes died long before millennials. Grandma quit ironing before you were born. Wrinkle Free shirts and pants started showing up in the 1970’s and were common within the decade.
Source: I was there.
Yep, old shirts came out of the wash looking like a fucking Calabi-Yau manifold, even casual wear.
I iron my tshirts and shorts otherwise they look crinkley
You could save yourself some time if you get your clothes out of both the washer and the dryer immediately after the cycles finish.
I don’t use the dryer except for towels, and I’m generally pretty good about taking them out when they’re done washing- can definitely tell when they’ve sat there a while!
Do you fold your clothes right after taking them out of the dryer, while they’re still warm?
Is everyone walking around with crumpled clothes? Or am I missing some critical life hack?
Shake out, hang when wet, never iron again.
Honestly most the advice I’m seeing is basically an answer to “how to avoid clothes looking absurdly crinkled” but nothing gets clothes as crinkle-free as an iron. Most people are just content with some crinkles.
Not even iron-free shirts are free from my iron.
I line dry everything but socks n towels. Stuff practically irons itself
Take your clothes out of the washer immediately, untangle them if necessary, and put them in the dryer. Don’t just dump all the clothes from washer to dryer. Remove the clothes from the dryer as soon as it’s done while they’re still warm. Hang shirts on hangers and put away the pants. Lastly, only buy new shirts and pants that are iron-free.
Speak for yourself. Casual clothes killed most ironing but ain’t nobody showing up in a wrinkled suit.
Casual clothes killed most ironing but ain’t nobody showing up in a
wrinkledsuit.Unless you’re upper management or going to a wedding/funeral/formal event, why would you even wear a suit? In the last decade I’ve worn my suit 3 or 4 times in the last decade, and they were all weddings or funerals.
Give it a try. Hit up a thrift store and get some great tacky suits from the 70s and 80s, if you can find em. It’s a bit of fun to wear them when it’s not necessary or expected. I probably wouldn’t wear a really nice wedding/funeral suit in such cases because I spill fucking everything and would become destitute from the dry cleaning bills.
Now, if it were a social expectation/requirement, it would suck and not be fun. But, as a choice that one can make, it’s great sometimes.
I have a tailored suit in my closet, but there’s no way in fuck I’m showing up to work in that suit or any other suit.
For one, I work from home and I want to actually be comfortable. For two, if I was going into the office, I would ruin it at some point crawling under desks and behind racks and shit.
Where I work the staff still wear full suits for the most part. I think it’s a more traditional workplace though.
Yeah I should have put an edit in. I didn’t know this was going to blow up like this. I don’t wear a suit or formal clothes more than about once a year, for the events of friends and families. I’m not trying to say it’s an every day thing.
I don’t even own a suit haha
I didn’t for a long time either. Then I needed one.
I wish they were more affordable in the US. I love wearing a suit, makes me feel like a mobster. lol Cosplay for the unstable.
Hopefully no weddings or funerals coming up. Then again, if you’re American, I’ve seen people show up to a wedding in shorts and a baseball cap. No ironing required.
The most recent funeral I attended, only the deceased’s brother wore a suit, the rest of the family wore basically everyday clothes, as did 99% of the attendants. I left my suit jacket in the car because I felt overdressed.
Was this in the US?
It was, yes.
The deceased wasn’t the type that would want anyone to put on their Sunday best just for him, so it made sense. But when I mentioned it to my father, he commented that no one really wears suits to funerals anymore, or even weddings.
That’s how we did my grandfather’s memorial. Grandma didn’t want it to feel formal and we weren’t about to force that.
Just across (south) of the bay from you judging by your name: I was at a funeral recently, not many people wore suits. Of course, nobody wore shorts or anything, but not too many formal suits.
How often do you wear a suit? Dry clean as necessary, hang it up between uses. I’ve never ironed a suit.
On the rare occasion I have to wear a dress shirt for work, I’m making sure it’s as wrinkled as possible. I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for one of the execs, it gives the impression that you don’t work hard. I think it’ll continue bubbling up in the same way not wearing a tie and not having curtails did.
Clothing steamers are less damaging though.
I’ve never had one actually work though. Irons, used properly, are safe and they work.
Mine does.
Bully for you?
?
I’m glad it works for you.
I like ironing my clothes though and if you show up to a formal family event with a shirt that looks like you rolled around in it, then I will offer to iron for you before the next time.
… You don’t iron your clothes?
Do you just go places looking like you just got dragged through a bush backwards?
Yes and yes
I’ll take my clothes to the cleaners if I need to look fancy. They do a much better job anyhow.
man if your clothes look dragged through bushes i think you need to reconsider your washing and storage routine, my clothes just have minor creases and the fanciest part of my routine is rolling things up before stuffing them in a drawer.
…but then your clothes might look like you’ve worn them before.
What are you? Poor?
I just buy new clothes every time.
Yes?
Now everyone’s poor, so it’s okay.
I, for one, do like to iron. I’d probably not like it if it was mandatory for all clothing though. What really has happened is societal changes leading to much more casual attire expectations (not that we could afford to dress like previous generations) alongside advancements in textile technology that have resulted in garments less likely to show wrinkles.
I got into sewing so I do use an iron, but even then half the time I’m lazy and don’t even press my seams. I’m not very good at sewing as a result, but I have a good time all the same.
Pressing open seams, especially the ones you need to sew over again, is the one really valid use of an iron.
And having fun is a very important part of home sewing!
The other really valid reason is linen. Kinda unrelated to sewing itself and it’s not about stopping the stuff from crinkling (that’s right-out impossible), but to make sure that crinkles don’t always appear in the same place so the fabric has a chance of wearing down evenly.
Found this out the hard way because my linen duvet covers are oversized – nominal size is correct, but they’re made for down blankets, not flat ones. Blanket slides inside, generally towards the bottom, leaving a fabric flap on the top that really tends to crinkle as you sleep, wash, hang up, the crinkles don’t straighten out, exact same crinkles appear in the exact same spot and get chafed while sleeping, rinse and repeat for two years the first hole starts appearing, a month later there’s more than you can be bothered to patch.
Luckily it was a simple matter of running a stitch down the length of the thing to shorten it a bit, but given that an iron and ironing mat (not a full table, mat is completely sufficient) is significantly cheaper than linen covers or just the material for them, definitely worth the investment and time.
Oh and yes linen covers are definitely worth it because moisture regulation. It’s also nice and soft – not in the silky smooth sense, it has definitive grip to it. So are linen kitchen towels because they actually dry stuff instead of spreading water around. Half-linen is already a massive upgrade over cotton in that area and it’s much cheaper (the main reason why full linen is so expensive is because it’s a bugger to weave, not because the yarn is that much more expensive. Weaving linen wefts into cotton warps OTOH is pretty uncomplicated).
You make good points. I can’t stand linen myself, I find it scratchy and itchy, makes my skin peel, but I realize I’m in the minority, and if you like it, it’s worth making it last.
Please tell me about any sewing-related communities you’re subbed to because I want to make sure I am also subbed to them! (I love linen)
Oh that’s easy (and probably disappointing): None. Not really a hobby of mine, more of an extension to doing the laundry and being a cheapskate who can’t fathom buying something new when you can fix it in the time it takes to listen to a podcast episode.
Ooops. Millennial here and I often iron my bed sheets. I have a weird ventless washer/dryer combo thing, and no matter how quickly I pull my sheets out or what dryness level I set it to, they come out quite wrinkled. I don’t really mind if the main sheet is a bit wrinkly, but it drives me nuts when the top edge gets all folded, and then those folds become permanent creases.
And that is the con of having a combo. They do a much better job as separate appliances. Kinda like… All season tires. They do neither well.
Yep. The dry cycle also takes about twice as long, but supposedly it’s more gentle on fabrics. It’s a pretty nifty option for small spaces without a way to properly vent the dryer, but I can see why they’re not more popular. The machine came with the place, so I didn’t exactly choose it, but I hang dry most stuff anyway, and definitely prefer it over dealing with shared, coin operated machines.
I don’t actually do anything about it, but I don’t like the way some sheets get that top hem all wrinkled either, so I honor your commitment to making the thing that matters to you better.
It’s right out of the dryer and hung up. Also, steam dryer is amazing. Only ironing is for button ups.
Ironing is the only time of the week where I have the time to watch TV or movies. Not that I don’t have free time, but I usually spend it in other ways. During ironing, I’m a captive audience. That said, I don’t iron all that much. I remember the last season of The Boys took me four months to finish…
I still have to put up with it a little bit but I made it my life’s mission to avoid it as much as possible whilst still being part of mainstream society. I’m so glad that this meme indicates that FINALLY other people are not only not doing it but also denouncing it as much as I have. I’ve had to hold back on bitching about how stupid and irritating it is because it was always something everyone else seemed to have viewed as a mundane, at worst neutral and at best good aspect of everyday life that wasn’t that hard and gave you nice looking clothes. You can’t complain at length about something that is considered in those terms because you just come off as a boring crank. But now finally, if only for a moment I can still feel normal whilst embracing my abiding hatred of the pointless and time wasting practice.
FUCK ironing, and especially fuck whatever dipshit came up with it. Before this was invented wrinkled clothes would have to have been but a fact of life. I’m near certain whoever did come up with this was someone who knew they personally would never have had to do it. For centuries it would have been palmed off on the usual people that had to carry out the shitwork and now, in modern times, we didn’t jettison the practice along with the sexism and classism that forced some to have to do it and not others, we just made it so that now we all have to do it. It delivers no benefit, it’s so fucking stupid aaagghh! Because of the conventions and expectations that formed around it, I’m unfortunately forced to participate in it despite my misgivings, even if only on the bare minimum of occasions. If I have a job interview, or I’m going to a fancy event I have play in to this ridiculous farce that is noticeable only from its absence and help perpetuate it. I sincerely hope this generation really has managed to abolish it and it’s only the remnants of my own upbringing and peers that mean I still have to occasionally do it because the world will be objectively better off if no one ever does this again.
Ironing is for crafts and sewing.
Imagine naming you iron “utopia”
