Mary Schmich, in a column in today's Chicago Tribune, asks whether people still iron. According to her, an ironing board is as difficult to find as the people who use them. She claims that "rumpled is more fashionable than starched" and contends that we live in a polyester world where advanced technology in the manufacture of clothes dryers have removed the requirement to iron.
My ironing board is permanently open and set up in the basement in the laundry area. The iron and bottled water to fill its reservoir are close by, as are hangers and a hanging rod. I iron almost every day. No, I don't iron sheets, my husband's underwear, or other incidental items, and I do have my share of polyester, which is completely wrinkle-free even if you roll it in a ball, tie it up with string and bat it around with with a tennis racket.
But then there's cotton. My t-shirts are cotton; my husband's chinos are cotton; and there are some blends that still wrinkle - stubborn ugly wrinkles that resist any iron made unless you use your spray of steam copiously. Even then, you'll put that blouse on and find a wrinkled area right down the front.
I'm not a size four, tall, and gorgeous. I need my clothes to make me look as well as I can look. Yes, my t-shirt may wrinkle as I wear it, but it's a different type of wrinkle than the ones that result from sitting in the dryer or being folded on the top of the closet. Nothing makes a big person look like a slob than a wrinkled look. And call it "rumpled," if you will, but it's still wrinkled, and it's sloppy and shows you don't care.
I have seen some of my college students show up in clothes that are adorable, stylish, and look like they have been slept in for a week. By no one's standards can this possibly be considered stylish. Ironing hasn't gone out of style because we don't need to iron or because Vogue is showing wrinkled clothes in high-fashion shots. People don't iron because it takes time, and it takes skill. Many young people just can't iron.
I remember watching my mother iron back in the time of sprinkling. My mother had an old brown beer bottle that she kept filled with water and on top was a sprinkler top - something you could buy in your local hardware store. My father wore heavy white cotton pants and shorts to work and used heavy cotton aprons. Steam irons just couldn't handle this material, so my mother would lay out these items on the kitchen table and sprinkle them with her sprinkler bottle. She'd then fold and roll these items, sprinkling each new layer as it was folded. When she was done rolling, she would put the items in a plastic bag, close it tight, and store it in the refrigerator until the next day. The storage was so that the article would be uniformly damp; the refrigeration was to eliminate any mold possibilities.
The next day, the iron came out and all the dampened clothes would be ironed and hung. Some items, like my father's work pants were starched in the laundry process. At other times, my mother would use spray starch on collars and cuffs of otherwise permanent press items. In high school, I loved those large crisp collars on my blouses.
As a child, I was given handkerchiefs to iron (Yes, who uses those these days?) and other simple items like A-line skirts. It didn't take long to graduate to everything else, including puffy sleeves and box pleats. Once I started to sew, I realized how valuable the skill of ironing was. Being able to iron a dart properly made a big difference in the finished product. (Does anyone still sew?)
I iron because I care how I look, and I'm not sure that people care about that as much. We have spent so much time telling our children that they are perfect just the way they are that we have made them think that paying attention to clothes, hair, and other grooming issues is unimportant and a waste of time. Love me; love my wrinkles. I marvel at how much time some teens spend in the mall, how much money they spend on clothes, and how they then go out looking as if they dressed themselves out of the discard bin at the Salvation Army. Has pride in presentation of the self gone the way of the 45 RPM record? According to the way some of my students come to class, I think so.
You can read Schmich's column here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-062612schmich,0,7889565.column
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