Why are formal clothes more likely to be dry-clean-only than casual clothes?

August 14, 2009 6:57 AM

Why are formal clothes more likely to be dry-clean-only than casual clothes?

I went to a wedding last Saturday, and I'm going to another one tomorrow. Both times I'm wearing a suit. The suit, of course, is labelled "dry clean only". This is inconvenient for me, since all my other clothes are machine-washable, but I'll do it.

This got me thinking: why are "formal" clothes, in general, less likely to be machine-washable? Are there reasons having to do with how the fabric is made? Or is this purely a status thing -- that wearing clothes that need Special Cleaning makes you more important than the people who can just throw their clothes in the washer and let them spin around? I'm hoping there's people who know more about fashion than I do who can answer this.

A quick Google indicates that there exist machine-washable suits: here, here, and here are press releases disguised as newspaper articles about them. (It's telling that these come up higher on Google than places where you could actually buy them.)

posted by madcaptenor to clothing, beauty, & fashion (22 comments total)

Machine washing and drying can be really tough on clothes, especially natural animal fibers, because of the heat and the agitation. Wool (and other things you shear off an animal, like alpaca, cashmere, etc.) felts unless it's specifically treated to be washable. Silk doesn't like being exposed to water at all. Most of the clothes we can throw into the wash are made of cotton, but suits are usually made of wool or some sort of wool blend.

(And, this typically doesn't apply to men's clothes, but the sequins and embroidery and other embellishments you might find on women's clothes come off pretty easily in the wash.)
posted by Jeanne at 7:03 AM on August 14

It's the fabric or embellishment on the fabric that could be damaged in the wash. In terms of suits, most nice ones are made out of wool. You can't wash wool in a washing machine because it'll shrink and felt, rendering the suit unwearable. You can wash wool things at home, but you need Woolite and a lot of time.

Women's dry clean only clothing often has lace, beading, or other little decorative things that would fall off in the wash. These can often be hand-washed.
posted by oinopaponton at 7:03 AM on August 14

Formal clothes are more likely to be made out of materials, such as wool, which require dry cleaning.

There are home dry cleaning kits, but I'm not sure how well they work.
posted by Comrade_robot at 7:04 AM on August 14

In addition to the advice above, your suit jackets are likely to be lined, and the lining will not shrink during the wash/dry cycle while the wool outer layer will. This will cause the suit jacket to have copious amounts of extra lining hanging all over the place while the outer wool layer no longer fits, rendering the jacket completely unwearable.

Pro tip: You do not need to dry-clean your suits unless they smell. Spot clean with mild soap and water to remove visible stains and air dry.
posted by coryinabox at 7:08 AM on August 14 [5 favorites]

Seconding coryinabox, you don't need to dry clean suits very often, maybe once every few months at most.
posted by pravit at 7:23 AM on August 14 [1 favorite]

Unless there's a stain, you can wear a suit quite a few times before it needs to be dry cleaned. If it's wrinkled it can be lightly pressed.

There are several different reasons that something might be labeled "Dry Clean Only". Most animal fibers like wool and silk will felt, shrink, or weaken if exposed to heat and agitation (like in a washing machine).

It is possible to gently hand-wash quite a few dry-clean-only items, in cold water with no agitation (I hand wash wool sweaters and some silk items), but I wouldn't attempt it with a suit due to the lining issue mentioned by coryinabox.

Cheap suits are machine-washable because they are made mostly out of polyester and treated wool. As a woman often forced to wear polyester suits, I am envious of the well-made, inexpensive wool suits available to men, and I would gladly pay the dry-cleaning bill for a chance to wear them. There is simply no comparison in comfort and quality.
posted by muddgirl at 7:38 AM on August 14

As others have said, wool suits don't need to be dry cleaned more than once every 3 months. Ideally even longer, especially with very fine-threaded wool suits (super 120s or more), since dry cleaning involves some very strong chemicals that weaken the fabric.

If your suits smell in between dry cleanings, bring it to the cleaners and ask to have it steamed. Gets the smell out as well as relaxing any wrinkles that've built up.

Don't wash it at home.
posted by chalbe at 8:20 AM on August 14

Addendum: you can do some home "steaming" by hanging your suit in the bathroom while you take hot showers.
posted by chalbe at 8:21 AM on August 14

You could use a home kit on your suit to perk it up and freshen it, but if you perspire, you're better off dry cleaning -- as soon as possible, too.
posted by jgirl at 8:26 AM on August 14

The president of the authority that oversees the application of all those "dry clean only" tags sewn into clothes was on the radio, and she said, "In most cases, especially sweaters and shirts, 'dry clean only' clothes can be carefully washed at home using Woolite. The label is there to protect the manufacturer from people who don't know how to do it right, and end up damaging their clothes."
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:36 AM on August 14 [2 favorites]

This is what makes them fancy. Fancy clothes are more delicate and fine. Casual clothes are suitable doing more things in them because they are made out of tougher stuff that can be washed easily and cheaply.
posted by Gor-ella at 8:38 AM on August 14

StickyCarpet finally provides me with what I had suspected! I always figured there was something about the "dry clean only" tags that was more about protecting the manufacturer than the garment. I hand-wash and/or machine wash on super gentle all my sweaters and have never had a problem. Garments with a lot of structure (suits) or embellishment seem to need the dry-cleaning but the idea that machine washing or wet cleaning is harder on the fibers of natural fiber garments is a bit much. Dry cleaning chemicals are WAY more destructive and cause much greater damage to wool and cashmere.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 8:50 AM on August 14

Because suits are made of WOOL. Your t-shirt and jeans are not.
posted by Zambrano at 9:06 AM on August 14

Actually, while many (most, surely) suits are wool, not all. I'd go strongly along with coryinabox, it is the variety of layers that are used in constructing a suit, all of which shrink at different rates.

As for those women's garments with beads and sequins and such: Why don't those come off in dry cleaning? AFAIK, dry cleaning is simply a washing machine with chemicals instead of water (granted, a front-loading machine, which are more gentle on clothes).
posted by Goofyy at 9:25 AM on August 14

If you're looking for the 'bigger' why, I'd imagine that formal clothes are made out of expensive, hard to maintain materials because those are the materials that rich people wear - Partially because of their properties, and partially because it costs so much to maintain/purchase them - Being able to throw down $50 to get your outfit cleaned every time you wear it is as much conspicuous consumption as a $200 Mont blanc fountain pen was in the 80's, or a giant expensive wristwatch is today.

See: this article on the color purple for elaboration.
posted by Orb2069 at 11:01 AM on August 14

The president of the authority that oversees the application of all those "dry clean only" tags sewn into clothes was on the radio

Are you sure she wasn't talking about "Dry Clean" rather than "Dry Clean Only"? The requirements for using the latter seems to be rather strict:

Federal Trade Commission: Textile Industry Alert! Don't Say 'Dry Clean Only' If It Can Be Washed:

"For example, if your label says Dry Clean Only, you are warning consumers that the item can't be washed safely, even by hand. To have a reasonable basis (and to be accurate), you must have proof that the garment will be harmed by washing. A reasonable basis for a warning not to wash a garment can consist of reliable evidence that the garment, a fair sample of the garment, or a component of the garment was harmed when washed by the safest method. A reasonable basis can also consist of test results, current technical literature, reliable past experience, or the industry expertise supporting the care information on the label, or "other reliable evidence." In the case of cashmere sweaters and other knit cashmere garments, industry expertise indicates that most such garments can be washed safely at home. Thus, you should not place a Dry Clean Only label on a knit cashmere garment unless you possess specific, reliable evidence that that garment will be harmed by washing."
posted by effbot at 11:02 AM on August 14 [1 favorite]

If you're looking for the 'bigger' why, I'd imagine that formal clothes are made out of expensive, hard to maintain materials because those are the materials that rich people wear - Partially because of their properties, and partially because it costs so much to maintain/purchase them

Well, it costs as much to dry clean a $99 wool suit as it does a $700 wool suit. There's no sliding scale on cleaning when it comes to suit quality. Which is kind of nice since it means that a good dry cleaner will take really good care of your clothes even if they're not that expensive.

As for madcaptenor's situation, since he's only wearing his suit twice over the course of a week, there's no reason to bother dry cleaning the suit in the first place. At most, one need only have it pressed before the first event and maybe do some ironing in between if it gets a little too wrinkled after that.
posted by deanc at 11:22 AM on August 14

Well, it costs as much to dry clean a $99 wool suit as it does a $700 wool suit.

The existence of $100 wool suits says more about the free market and the economies of the textile trade than it does about why people make dress suits out of wool instead of (say) any number of modern 'technical' fabrics that might be less expensive, look better, be more comfortable, machine washable and longer wearing - We've come a long way in fabric from the 1800's.

Or, by way of comparison, I can go out today and buy a $10 t-shirt in a purple brighter and more durable than any garment available during the Roman years, but that doesn't explain why purple is still often considered 'the color of royalty'.
posted by Orb2069 at 12:32 PM on August 14

Wool actually shouldn't ever be dry-cleaned. A gentle, cold water hand-wash and lay flat to dry and that's it. The chemicals in dry-clean processes is very harmful to wool fibres. Yes, wool will felt if you wash it in the machine, but it doesn't automatically felt with water. I have 100% virgin wool, hand-knit sweaters that I've worn for years and hand-washed several times and they haven't felted from a gentle wash.

Felting, something we knitters often do on purpose, takes heat + water + agitation. Washing in cold water eliminates the heat and minimizes the agitation to almost nothing. It's way better on wool fibres than dry-cleaning. I'm skeptical of any claim that something can only be dry-cleaned.
posted by Kurichina at 1:16 PM on August 14

... why people make dress suits out of wool instead of (say) any number of modern 'technical' fabrics that might be less expensive, look better, be more comfortable, machine washable and longer wearing - We've come a long way in fabric from the 1800's.

As someone who works with fabric, I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a modern fabric that has all the qualities of wool. It's odor neutralizing properties are far superior to synthetics, it takes all types of dyes (including natural dyes) much better than synthetic fabric, absorbs moisture (up to 35% of it's own weight, while remaining dry to the touch) yet retains excellent thermal properties, is flame resistant, static resistant, extremely durable due to being made up of interlocking proteins, and does not pill or shed when the higher quality, long fibers are used. There are no "technical" fabrics that have all these qualities at this time. I won't get into the hand and drape of most synthetics- suffice to say there are very few that feel at all luxurious or high quality.

Wool does not necessarily have to be dry cleaned, as others have pointed out. It is the construction of formal wear that requires non-machine washing; it is often made of disparate fabrics and threads that can respond differently to washing and alter the proper fit and hang of the garment. In addition, some trims and buttons cannot be washed without damage- leather covered buttons, for example. Formal clothes obviously weren't dry cleaned before the technology existed. Instead, people either took more meticulous care of the storage and cleaning of their clothes, removing buttons before washing and then sewing them back on, or spending careful hours brushing, blotting, hand washing, and ironing.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:17 PM on August 14 [4 favorites]

I'm interested in goofyy's question too but don't have any idea why it's okay to put delicately constructed garments or those that have tons of structure in them in a front-loading dry-cleaning machine that seems pretty similar to a wet-washing machine. I think sometimes they cover decorative bits and/or put things in mesh bags to protect them but other than that, I don't get it either. And actually, now having read a few articles about what they actually do to garments when they dry clean them, I'm even less likely to ever take anything to one.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 3:26 PM on August 14

oneirodynia - one"technical" (I guess "semi-technical") fabric I've encountered recently that has a decent hand is quality rayon.

Except that rayon is often labeled dry clean only because it can't handle wet agitation! :)
posted by muddgirl at 3:48 PM on August 14