When I press my shirts & slacks, I iron to the edge of the seam. On the rare occasions when I make use of a laundry service, I don’t recall ever having to explain this preference to them – my clothes come back creaseless – isn’t that the point of pressing them?
From time-to-time, some well-meaning souls have taken it upon themselves to surprise me by pressing my clothes when I’m not looking. Since this is, as a rule, done only by family members or a SO, it’s difficult for me to express the full extent of my horror and dismay when creases appear in my clothes, as they invariably have done when someone else, who isn’t payed to, irons them.
Sharp creases down the sides of the sleeves of shirts, and down the front and back of the legs of trousers. AAAAAAARGH. I would feel just as ludicrous and conspicuous wearing clothes that have been thus abused as if they weren’t pressed at all. (The most egregious instance of this is when I found that my favourite jeans had been given creases. WTF?)
When I try to explain that I’d prefer to iron my own clothes, and further that I won’t be able to wear the ones so treated until I’ve laundered and ironed them again to eliminate the creases, the reactions have ranged from wounded looks to blank incomprehension and condescension about my “eccentricity.” If it was just one person, I’d put it down to well-meaning ignorance, but I’ve got this from no less than four people.
Who’s crazy here? To me, creased shirts and trousers only seem appropriate on the cotton/polyester blend uniforms worn by those in certain segments of the service industry.
I was always taught, when ironing, to put creases where you indicated in your OP. However, when I’m in a hurry, I’ll iron like you and skip the pants creases.
I find it easier to iron shirt-sleeve creases than to somehow avoid them while ironing. After all, the sleeve is a cylinder with only one seam – some crease has to go somewhere.
While the above is also true of pants, the creases can be made to coincide with the seams easily in pants.
Personally, I don’t care for creases at all. Here’s my take, however.
Pants: If the pants are pleated, then they naturally have a crease (ie. many suit pants). If they are flat front, then they should not have a crease. This is a general observation, although I, like you, wash and iron out all creases.
Shirts: Creases in a shirt are a crime against humanity.
I’m of the same opinion…pleated pants or dress pants definitely require a crease. How anyone can iron a shirt without at least one crease in each sleeve is a mystery I will ponder till I get home and put it to the test.
Creases in jeans are in no way acceptable under any circumstance…write your congressman…there should be a law on this IMHO.
Creasing jeans or chinos is a crime against humanity. It’s right up there with “belt buckles the size of watermelons.”
Creasing shirt sleeves is as well, except in certain circumstances, mainly for tuxedo shirts with pleated fronts.
I pretty much only wear pleated pants these days, so they’ve almost always got a crease. On the rare occasion that I wear flat front pants, no crease.
But I did once have a SO who had been brought up in the belief that ALL pants must be ironed with creases. Jeans, chinos, flat fronts, pleated fronts, baggy pyjama pants, there was no end to it. Drove me CRAZY.
FWIW, you iron shirts without creasing the sleeve by the simple expedient of not ironing the darn crease into the fabric. Iron right up to where you’d be pressing the crease in, and then shift the sleeve slightly so you can iron the area you haven’t hit yet without setting the crease.
I agree with you that shirts should not have creases in the sleeves! As has been indicated to me in various social circles over the years, having creases in shirt sleeves denotes a type of laziness to detail and is considered “low-class”. Yes, it is so much easier to be lazy and iron creases in the sleeves because it doesn’t take as much time. However, if you are dealing with high powered, attention oriented people, one does not want to come across as lazy!
Also, continually ironing creases in the sleeves shortens the life of good shirt, especially, if it is of a natural fiber such as silk. It is, also, difficult to always get the crease in the same place each time. An example of why not to crease is by thinking of a piece of paper. If one puts a fold (crease in it) it is very difficult to get that fold out! It can’t be unfolded (un-creased). Eventually, continually putting in folds (creases) weakens that area where the fibers are continually creased!
I try to avoid ironing whenever possible. Usually I hang up my dresses (I don’t wear pants) when they come out of the dryer, and this eliminates just about all need for ironing, even though the dresses are 100% cotton.
However, my husband was in the Air Force for a dozen years, and I was with him for 11 1/2 of those years. And mostly, I did his laundry, including ironing creases into his shirts and pants. Our daughter was in JROTC all through high school, and I occasionally ironed her uniforms, too, though I generally dropped them off at the dry cleaners. Basically, I don’t believe in ironed-in creases, unless the dress code calls for them. I think that creases on the back of the shirt are particularly tacky, but sometimes that’s what the dress code calls for.
Around here, we still have a cowboy culture, and part of that culture was to have the good jeans and the work jeans. The cowboys would bring their jeans to a laundry, where they would be cleaned, heavily starched, and have knife sharp creases put in them. Even the work jeans were creased. However, this has pretty much disappeared, except for a few holdouts in the back country areas. Sometimes I see country boys who are in town for the day, in their dark (good) jeans, with knife creases in them. Most people, though, wear stonewash or lighter jeans, without creases.
Oh, and I do iron when I sew, because it helps set the stitches. After something’s finished, though, it goes through the washer and dryer and doesn’t see an iron again unless there’s some sort of desperate need for it.
When I was growing up, a lot of people line dried some or all of their clothes. There were metal frames that you were supposed to put into pants and jeans, to keep them nice and smooth and give a partial crease to them. Jeans, as you might imagine, are hard to iron, and these forms would give you a head start on ironing them.
You are as mad as a hatter. If you’re smart, you’ll lay low until my anger blows over. Of course, creases are a must. Only jeans (and other products designed to be creaseless)* may* go without them.
Incidentally, if you find that you MUST iron a shirt, and it’s not the kind of shirt that needs creased sleeves, you can roll up a towel and stuff it in the sleeve and avoid creases that way. If you have to iron shirt sleeves on a regular basis, there’s a doohickey that you can buy (I think it’s called a sleeve roll) that will help you do this. I don’t own one, as I rarely find it necessary to iron a shirt. There are also ham-shaped things called tailor’s hams, which you can use to help you iron the seat of pants without creasing the butt. I do own one of those, but I only use it when I’m sewing garments (as opposed to sewing quilts).
I like a little starch and creases in my dress shirts…but that is probably a habit left over from the military. I think it looks sharp, not lower class or lazy.
Some pants get creases, some don’t, and it’s pretty obvious.
Jeans…nevernever.
Reminds me of a funny…when I was in the Marine Corps way back, I was attached to the MP unit for a bit. Mostly what I did was stand at the base gate and wave people in (or turn them around if they weren’t authorized…silly tourists.) So I had a super sharp uniform, ton of starch, spectacular creases. One day my wife (at the time) thought she’d do me a favor and touch up my uniform. Nice huh? Well I got to work that morning, and was a bit in to my watch when I bothered to look down, and see on my pants two wonderful creases…on each leg :smack:
