Care Tips: How to Clean Tailored Apparel

When one of our custom suits is taken home by its new owner, the fabric feels soft and luxurious, the shoulders are crisp, and the suit pants are perfectly folded along a sharp crease. A well-maintained suit can retain these marks of quality with proper care. However, there are some potential pitfalls which can ruin or degrade a beautiful suit.

One of the most common mistakes a suit owner makes is regularly dry cleaning their suit. The heat and chemicals that dry cleaners use can sometimes cause a fine wool to lose its softness and lustre.

Wait - so then how am I supposed to clean my suit?

There are some good options you can employ instead of dry cleaning, which can ruin a suit with high heat, excessive chemical treatment, and the removal of natural oils.

Generally, suits won't even require regular cleaning. If you hang them up properly, the fine wool fabrics that we use will shed their wrinkles right on the hanger. Remember to leave the garment bag open when hanging so that the fabric can breathe, and to use a sturdy hanger so that your suit's shoulders remain well-formed.

So that's it?

Well, sometimes you do have to perform some maintenance on your suit. For example, if your suit has developed some wrinkles, you can often just hang it up in the bathroom when you run a hot shower. The steam will get out the major wrinkles. In the same vein, a hand steamer is also a great tool for getting wrinkles out of your suits and shirts.

If your suit has acquired an undesirable odour, you can usually deal with that by hanging it up outside on your porch or balcony. Use caution as we do not offer refunds if your suit blows away in a strong wind!

Blair, my suit is dirty and no amount of hanging will fix that.

Okay, if it's just a nasty stain, bring the suit to the dry cleaner and tell them to spot clean that specific area. Otherwise, dry cleaning might just be in order. Try to find a dry cleaner that you can trust not to ruin your beautiful garments! As well, some cleaners are now offering "wet cleaning" which can be used on "dry clean only" garments and is gentler on both the garment and the planet.

Want to know our go-to local dry cleaners? Shoot us an email and we’ll spill the beans!