Wear suits every day for work? How do you clean them?

[masraum]

This popped into my head a while back, and I keep for getting to ask. Something in my thread about selling my suit reminded me.

Do you wear suits to work? If you wear a suit to work, how do you clean it? I know most are dry clean only. How often do you get them cleaned? I am assuming you don't get them cleaned every time you wear them or every other wearing? I understand that the jackets should stay fairly clean since you probably have a shirt and t-shirt between your skin and the jacket, but what about the pants? You aren't quite as isolated from the pants as you are the jacket and pants seem more likely to have things dropped or dripped on them (probably not taking your pants off to eat like a jacket). You may sweat while wearing the pants, especially if you have much of a drive, and then there's always the possibility of sitting on a dirty seat or something.

I understand that you probably don't want to clean the pants and jackets separately or the colors will begin to diverge.

Do you just own a crap load of suits and only get them cleaned occasionally, or you own extra pants per jacket or you just don't worry about it or...?

[Bob Kontak]

Many, many wearings between cleaning.

Have to press pants on occasion.

Coats when you spill something on them.

Think annual for slacks if you have five suits.

[avi8torny]

I have 3 pair of pants for each of my suit jackets and send 2 pair to the drycleaners/week.

Hope that helps

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Originally Posted by Bob Kontak

Many, many wearings between cleaning.

^This- I wear pants until wrinkled.
When they get wrinkled- I use a hand held garment steamer similar to this to unwrinkle them(goofy pic- but gives the point)

When I get some food or something in it- then it gets cleaned. Usually it's food that is the weakest link- and something gets splattered on the pants- and in reality- that's just me being lazy. Same goes for food on ties.
Pants shouldn't get sweated in. If you have a corporate job that requires wool pants-it should have a nice air conditioned cubicle, and, you will have a fat requisite car with a icy cold air conditioner. It's a vicious white collar circle
(p.s- I usually stay away from the p-cars with wool pants/ the AC deletes always do cause sweat- and oil ALWAYS has a way to find perfectly clean clothes and ruin them).

[Chocaholic]

Have suit dry cleaned after 2-3 wearings.

[motion]

Pants get cleaned after each wearing. Suit tops more like every 20 wearings.

[flatbutt]

Back when I did I owned 7 suits. I wore a different one every day. Spillage and other events aside the suits got dry cleaned only a few times per year. But like others said the pants were maintained regularly.

The big exception was for when I spent time in the Caribbean. I sweated quite a bit so those suits got cleaned after each trip.

I do NOT miss those days.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by motion

Pants get cleaned after each wearing. Suit tops more like every 20 wearings.

Why would you subject quality clothing to this abuse?

[MRM]

I wear a suit it sport coat almost every day. Suits and coats get cleaned immediately wherever something shows on them. They also get cleaned when They get too wrinkled or start to feel a little stale. They all get it once a year whether they need it or not. Slacks get cleaned more often, probably a couple of times a year because they see more wear and get more food or drink dropped on them. They are all dry cleaned. I've discovered that if a suit looks a little tired and out of shape, it probably just needs to be cleaned. A freshly cleaned suit looks like it's new unless the fabric frayed.

[Scott R]

We are very fortunate at work in that they pickup dry cleaning twice a week.

[RANDY P]

dry cleaning just whacks out clothes, I keep enough in rotation so maybe, a few times a year. Clean suits only when they need 'em. I don't lounge around in business attire. Soon as I'm home, sweats.

Dress shirts and expensive I always professionally launder- they last indefinitely when you do that.

PS- there is a difference between laundering and dry cleaning- dry cleaning uses stinky solvents.

rjp