How to Iron Your Tuxedo

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We have long been a fan of using a home steamer to remove wrinkles from my suits. It’s so much quicker and cheaper than having them professionally pressed. Apparently,  it’s also much more damaging.

Table of Contents
  1. Steaming vs Pressing

Steaming vs Pressing

I recently stumbled across a couple of posts on menswear forums by a tailor who provides a detailed explanation of how a suit’s construction can be adversely affected by steam. Even the old trick of hanging one up in a steamy bathroom for a few minutes is risky in his opinion. As with any other professional advice it’s ultimately up to the reader to weigh perfection against practicality but his arguments definitely provide food for thought.

Gosford Park Ironing Downstairs
Gosford Park Ironing Downstairs

The crux of his explanation is that individual pieces of a suit are stretched or shrunk into shapes that conform to the human body. This shaping process, known as “ironwork”, takes place before any of the pieces are sewn together and requires a lot of time and skill. It is accomplished by first using steam to relax the wool’s fibers then stretching or shrinking the piece as required. When the fabric cools it retains the desired shape.

He compares the shaping process to curling hair with a curling iron and we all know what happens when curled hair is exposed to humidity:  it loses its shape and sags. Same goes for the stretched wool which relaxes as it hangs, losing the shape required to lie smoothly over the body’s contours. Furthermore, steam can cause deliberately stretched seams to pucker and puff, especially around the sleeve cap. Sometimes the original fit can be restored with a competent pressing but the more serious damage is usually permanent. (As if this weren’t enough reason to avoid steaming, the hot mist can also cause the interlining fused between the inner and outer layers of some jackets to become unglued, creating unsightly bubbles on the surface.)

We created a series on ironing like a pro at home that you can find here.

Part I – Essential Ironing Tools

Part II -How To Iron A Dress Shirt

Part III – How to Iron Dress Pants

Part IV – How to Iron a Suit Jacket Part IV

Reader Comments

  1. This has been very informative! I often place my suits in the shower to steam it while traveling to get the packing wrinkles out. I think I will be careful from now on.

  2. Thanks so much for this very helpful information. I came to this web page after starting to press a tuxedo jacket with a steam iron and running into trouble. Apparently I used too much steam on the dart on the left front (below the breast pocket, just like you are warned NOT to do in the article) and got some very noticeable “bubbling” at the top end of the dart, and also along the front edge between the button holes. NOT GOOD! After reading this article, I used the sleeve board and pressed (i.e. without sliding iron around) along each side of the dart WITHOUT STEAM (using a tea towel of course), and also pressed the area between the button holes with dry heat. The “bubbled” areas improved greatly and were almost unnoticeable. It seems like the dry heat shrinks the wool fabric back up that got stretched/expanded/misshapen under the steam.

    Most of the other sites on the web do not warn you of the potential problems of using too much steam on a wool suit. Thanks again for providing some really good information.

  3. All these tips are worth reading, and great tips for any beginner. Thanks for sharing this nice article.

  4. Thank you so much! My youngest grandson is in the men’s choir at high school. The tux ha was provided is of course inexpensively made but it is brand new. I can’t afford to have it pressed by a professional, and so your tutorial really helped. His tux looks very nice now. You saved me!

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