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Care · 2026-09-04
Caring for Pleats
Heat-set pleating is memory: the fabric was folded, cooked and cooled into a shape, and it wants to go back there. So the first rule is to hang it, not fold it — a pleated dress folded in a drawer for a month creases against its own memory and takes a season to relax. Second, steam from a distance, never press. An iron flattens the set permanently at the point of contact. Third, if you are packing it, roll it loosely inside a cotton layer rather than folding at a crease line. Fourth, ignore anyone who tells you pleats cannot be washed: they can, but only by a launderer who has done pleats before, which in London means two or three shops. Everything else is a gamble with a very visible loss.
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