I have a couple of jackets and a number of tailored pants bought with the jackets. For each jacket, I have one pair of matching slacks.
I wear the pants far more often (daily) than the jackets (monthly, at best). However, my wife insists than when I dry-clean the pants, I must take the jackets in as well, as to not mismatch the colors (apparently, the DC process fades the coloring, so the idea is that if I take the slacks and not the jackets, the pants will end up shades lighter than the jackets.)
Well, I’m tired of paying $12.95 to clean already-clean jackets. So, I ask those in the know - is my wife right, or am I wasting money (or both)?
Your wife is 100% right. I wear a suit every day and as such I now buy 4 pants to one jacket for the very reason you outline. It’s great I have two different suits I wear every day and as I only wear each pair of pants once a fortnight I can not go to the drycleaners for months!
So yes repeat after me “my wife is right [always]”
Yep. Every time I go to a fancy 'do on base I’m appalled by the light blue pants and dark blue jackets I see airmen in. Don’t think of it as cleaning a clean thing, think of it as ‘fading the material’ of a clean thing. There, isn’t that better?
If you rarely wear both the pants and the jacket , then why buy them in combinations? For example, I have one black suit (pants and matching jacket)and I essentially always wear both pieces together . I also have entirely separate pairs of black pants which are worn with various non-black jackets/sweaters or no jacket at all, which completely avoids problem of the cleaning an unworn jacket so it matches the pants.
And I think the idea of the sports jacket was that you would wear the jacket with pants other than your suit pants-for example, a navy jacket with tan pants.Theres no fading to match as they don’t match to begin with.
It’s not actually to do with the dry-cleaning process in particular but with cleaning your clothes. The same thing applies to regular clothes washing, too.
If you wash a 2 piece outfit in the regular wash, you want to wash both together to fade them the same.
If you wear suits a lot, have them dry cleaned frequently, then it would make a difference over time. But a couple of more cleanings for the pants than the jacket isn’t going to make a noticeable difference.
As for mismatched suit jackets and pants, I’d do that without hesitation because I don’t care, but I think the fashion mavens say you never do that. Suit jackets are cut and padded to have a particular look that wouldn’t be right with mis-matched pants. But as I said, I don’t care. Only for a brief period have I owned more than one suit combo. If I have to get dressed up I prefer a sports jacket and whatever pants my wife says don’t look horrible with it.
