Rob's Rants

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post praising the cheap suit. In it, I said that for most people, the quality of a cheap suit really doesn’t matter.

But there are some concessions that must be made to cheapness. One of the distinguishing characteristics of a cheap suit is cheap fabric. And cheap fabric has problems. Namely, it wrinkles easily, it starts out “shiny” and gets worse the more it’s cleaned, and it falls apart faster than expensive threads. So what’s a cheap suit fan to do?

The Cheap Suit's Secret Weapon

The main answer is to reduce the number of trips to the dry cleaner that the suit takes. Each dry cleaning makes all the deficiencies of a cheap suit worse – the fabric gets shinier, the lining starts to come loose, and the wear increases. The good news is that no suit needs to be cleaned after every wearing, no matter how cheap or expensive. But how do you avoid looking like a wrinkled mess when you go to wear it again?

The answer is a home steamer. That’s right, the wrinkles can be steamed right out and the creases steamed back in. And it’s easier than ironing.

So, after you buy your cheap suit, buy one of these. There are several models available. I have the Conair model shown at left that I paid well under $100 for a few years ago. It works great, on suits, shirts, pants, and other clothes. And, it makes quick work of wrinkled clothes in the morning before work. I usually flip the heat on when I get out of the shower, and by the time I’m done brushing my teeth the steam is flowing and I can be wrinkle-free in minutes. The clothes are ready to wear as soon as I’m done. I can usually get three or four wearings out of a suit and still look crisp and pressed each time. And three or four wearings, rotated among the five suits in my closet means well over a year between dry cleanings. Provided of course you don’t spill anything on yourself and you don’t find yourself standing in the August sun sweating until your suit is soaked. Then you might want to clean the stink out of it.

Trust me on this — the steamer is the cheap suit’s best friend.

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Related posts:

1. In Praise of the Cheap Suit