How to keep your vintage clothes for long

If you paid dearly for your vintage or vintage inspired dress, you will definitely want to keep it for a long time so that maybe your grandchildren could dawn it someday … or sell it on ebay. But what to do if you want to both parade around in this set and keep it from falling apart? Glad you asked. Here are some special but very simple rules to keep your precious clothes for a long time! First of all, even if your dress is airy and breezy try to resist from spraying it with a luxury odor. Usually perfumes consist of special chemicals and oils and even a drop of flacon content may ruin your dress for ever. The alcohol in the contents may make your dress less bright. So is there another way to be breezy and sweet-smelling? Actually there are two ways! First, make an “odor cloud” spraying in front of you and then step forward into that cloud. But an even better way is to spray your body 5-10 minutes before dressing. It comes to reason the perfumes must be top extra quality so that after a hot day, the perfume oils on your body won’t soak into the perfect fabric of the dress. If you are a busy woman you shouldn’t be lazy. Oftentimes it happens that we, women, leave our beautiful outfits in the laundry basket and this basket waits until the weekend because we are in charge of domestic work and many other affairs. But if any gown (not only of a splendid quality) is mixed in with other garments for more than several hours, the fabrics may be ruined right after the first washing or laundering. Do not be lazy and get your gown laundered right after the affair especially if it’s made of chiffon or silk. Oftentimes the vendors prompt us about the special regimes of laundering and ironing. But this is not the only factor to keep your clothes in perfect condition. For example, choose the proper coat rack or hanger for your clothes. Some dresses need to be folded, and others, be hung. Check it! Every fabric is unique, that is, all fabrics need a special approach. Cotton is good at absorbing liquids and it takes some time for cotton clothes to dry. Usually cotton clothes are washed under a temperature of 60 C. especially bright and dyed fabrics.

 (cotton and lace)

Wool fabrics are rather “caprise” but they are worthy of being worn because even a thin woolen fabric can keep the warmth and it is hard to be stained. If you happened to purchase a woolen item of clothing at a very high price that means it requires hand washing. Not the hand washing regime at your laundry service or washing machine, it means actual “hand washing” with a very delicate baby shampoo. Angora and mélange wool should not be soaked during the washing, and these fabrics shouldn’t be rubbed either. If you washed them and want to dry them it’s better use an ordinary Turkish towel. In other words, treat your woolen clothes the way you treat your puffy cat. No kidding! The linen fabrics (which are probably leaders of vintage and vintage inspired clothes) are don’t wear out easily, and they don’t absorb a lot of water. In addition to this the fact, linen fabrics get dry easily. BUT. They do have a tendency to get rumpled. You can wash your linen fabrics at very high temperatures but use a “wetting” regime when ironing them. Knitted fabrics and jersey oftentimes can be very troublesome as these fabrics are very fragile and hard to be kept. These fabrics should be kept folded and washed at a temperature of 40 C. If you want to get this fabric dry, use a Turkish towel. And what do you do if you already ruined your perfect jersey or knitted top or dress? The pellets can be removed using a special pellet cutter machine. You can iron your jersey items using a special linen cloth. Right after steaming, you can “peel off” problem areas using a tough brush. You can then fix the result using a cloth soaked in petroleum and liquid ammonia (5:1) to remove the rest of the dirty rubbed spots. But if the unwelcome “wear out glossy” on your fabric hasn’t gone, use ordinary salt and sponge to rub and remove the spots completely. Use a delicate regime of ironing for your chiffon, velvet and silk dresses. Do not use mechanical cleaning, use the hand-washing instead. Remember the rule for chiffon and silk dresses: only one dress per hanger allowed! If your dress is embroidered use a special high quality cover for your dress. But do not forget to air it out a couple of times per season! If your chiffon or silk dress is in light colors, use a black cover because the light cover may spoil the light shades of your item’s true colors.

 (silk)

Use only delicate shampoos for these types of fabrics and iron the dresses ONLY in when the are in a vertical position. Do not wring your dresses out, especially the velvet ones! Iron your silk dress only on the inner part. Get your velvet, chiffon or silk dress dried only in horizontal position, for example on the ironing board! The process itself is very problematic but it will help you keep your beloved clothes for a long time.

If you want to keep lace fabrics for a long time, use cheesecloth or a cloth of gauze for ironing. If your lace dress is too delicate, fold the gauze cloth several times. If your lace is embroidered, then iron your dress on the inner side. Using a starched gauze, you may make the lace fabric tough. Do not rub any lace fabrics while washing!

(lace)

To keep the tulle in its original condition, you should wash it in warm water, and do not rub. After, roll your tulle dress into a wet bed sheet, then roll it out and repeat these steps until the moisture is nearly gone. It is better to trust your perfect dress to higher class laundry professionals if you intend to keep it looking beautiful.

But if you opt for doing everything yourselves you cannot do without these rules! Your dresses will look like they are newly purchased for a very long time! So think twice about the next time your wash if you intend to give your precious gown to your daughter or sell it at ebay!