Ironing a Shirt

A wrinkled shirt tells people you got dressed in the dark and hoped no one would notice. They noticed.

Ironing is not difficult; it is merely tedious, which is why so many men avoid it, as though tedium were a medical condition rather than a minor and recurring feature of adult life. The process takes seven minutes, and you spend longer than that deciding what to watch, so the excuse of insufficient time is not one I am prepared to entertain.

Begin with the collar. Lay it flat, underside up, and press from the points toward the centre, then flip it and repeat. The collar frames your face, and if the collar is wrong, nothing else you do to the shirt will matter in the slightest.

Next, the yoke (that is, the panel across the shoulders): drape one shoulder over the narrow end of the board and press from the shoulder toward the centre, then repeat on the other side.

Then the cuffs. Unbutton them, lay them flat, and press. If they are French cuffs, iron them flat without a crease; button cuffs are pressed with the placket open.

The sleeves follow. Lay each sleeve flat with the seam along the bottom edge and press from the shoulder to the cuff. Do not create a crease along the top of the sleeve unless you wish to look as though you are wearing someone else’s shirt from 1987.

The front panels are next. Start with the button side, working the tip of the iron carefully between the buttons, and do not iron over them, as they will leave impressions in the fabric and may crack. The placket (the strip where the buttons sit) should be pressed flat.

Finally, the back. Lay it flat across the board and press in long, smooth strokes; if the shirt has a centre pleat, press it in place.

Hang the shirt immediately, on a hanger. Not on the back of a chair, not on the doorknob, and emphatically not on the floor. You have just spent seven minutes removing wrinkles, and to create new ones in the time it takes to walk across the room would be an act of self-sabotage so pure that I could almost admire it, were I not so weary of witnessing it.