“You’ll never have to iron them,” the salesperson on the other end of the phone told Earl when he ordered some dress shirts recently. “They’re a special fabric,” Earl reported back to me. But I was skeptical.
Such clothing has been around for years. I remember in the 1970s my friend Jane Robinson would talk about how she had given up ironing in favor of clothing labeled “Permanent Press” or “Wash and Wear.” She would simply remove the shirts and other articles from the dryer while they were still warm, shake them, and hang them on hangers. I tried that back then, but wasn’t happy with the results. So, I consigned myself to ironing for another thirty years, just to have a smooth crease and a flat collar.
More recently, Earl’s daughter Adaire and I had a conversation about the current style for summer wear. It’s pretty much wrinkled linen; while she loves it, I can’t bring myself to wear it. It goes against my ironing principles. And when Earl’s shirts arrived, sure enough . . . as far as I’m concerned I wouldn’t wear one without pressing it, even if I dragged it from my dryer at high heat. Or even if wrinkled clothing is all the rage.
Maybe it’s my age; my mother taught me to iron before I was in junior high school, and I’ve been at it ever since. I asked another friend of mine, Noreen, if she felt the same way and was relieved to learn she did. We giggled together about our eccentricity. My only hope is that if wrinkles are in as far as clothing is concerned, might they not be in soon as far as aging is concerned? In that case, I’ll gladly wear them.
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