Eli5, Why can’t suits be washed in the washing machine?
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Unlike a lot of clothes you put in the washer, suits have structure built into them. It’s what gives them shape, form, and fit. Additionally, suits are commonly made with more delicate fabrics like wool, silk, and linen. Placing a suit in a washer that agitates clothes would ultimately destroy it because it would ruin its structure and degrade the fabric.
If the fabric is wool or wool blend, the agitation process could actually start to felt the fibers closer together. This is, I think, the main reason wool is said to “shrink” when washed.
If the garment has 2+ fabrics sewn together inside it and one of them changes size, you can see how that would be a problem!
For the most part, suits are made of wool, which doesn’t wash very well. It’s not impossible, but just not the recommended way of cleaning wool.
Secondarily, when it comes to a men’s suit jacket, the shoulder pads are shaped and formed in a certain way, often using cotton, which would misshape and lose it’s form, especially if it was put into a traditional washing machine with an agitator in the middle.
Washing a suit wouldn’t necessarily ruin the material per se, but it would run the risk of shrinking the wool, and misshaping the cotton.
Dry or spot cleaning is the preferred method for these reasons.
So, does the dry cleaner Dip them in chemicals ?
Even if a suit has no wool content, like many cheap and mass produced ones, it will frequently have layers of fusible interfacing in the front pieces of the jacket, and around any vents or pockets. Washing will degrade the glue and the suit will look like absolute garbage.
Even if there is no fusible interfacing used, like in handmade, high-quality suits, the process of suit-making involves shaping the pieces of the garment, especially the fronts where the lapels are and where the sleeves attach to the body, to fit nicely around the curves of the body. Agitation, heat, moisture, and detergent will undo all of that. It has to do with how the garment pieces are handled and stitched during the tailoring process. You can’t re-do all that with a garment steamer or iron.
A lot of suits are made of a wool or wool blend. Wool is a pain in the arse and shrinks when you even think about washing it.
Earlier this year I bought a generous length of Italian wool mix fabric with which to make a pair of trousers for graduation. I thought I’d give it a light wash to allow for the shrinkage and to get the treatment chemicals off it. Well, I had a bit of a brainwrong and put it on the wrong setting on the machine – I should’ve put it on the wool cycle, which doesn’t do much agitation and spinning, but I put it on a synthetics wash instead (a fair amount of agitation and spin). Well, that fabric shrunk waaaay more than I expected. I just about had enough to make the trousers.
Long story short, If you buy a suit then bung it in the machine, it’ll probably shrink and you’ll be annoyed.
I’m a former suit salesmen. It depends on the kind of suit you’re talking about. I’ve sold everything from high street (€100) to Tom Ford (€6,000)
Cotton or linen?
You can machine wash them. You just need to put them on a very delicate wash and make sure you shape them as you dry them. If you have a shaping hanger, this helps. It literally looks kinda like a torso. These are usually unlined suits so they don’t have any real structure to them.
Wool or wool blend?
Literally no need to machine wash them, sponging and pressing will get most stains out of them. Wool is durable. No need to even dry clean most of them. If you ask your dry cleaner to sponge and press instead, the suit will thank you for it. Unless you’re a sweat monster when you’re wearing them, then do the suit a favour.
However, on more expensive suits there is a structure underneath the suit, it’s usually made out of horse hair and it’s really delicate. You can actually damage this just by folding it wrong or leaning on it in a weird way but you absolutely don’t want to get it wet. Now the weight of the fabric of your suit will determine how much you need to worry about getting wet. On the lighter fabrics, you basically don’t even want someone breathing heavily near you but on the heavier tweeds etc, it’s all good. A horse could piss on you and the structure would be fine. The fabric might be a bit fucked though.
The shoulder structure is an absolute mess when you see it without lining and fabric around it. If you have ever seen the inside of a mattress or sofa, that’s what it looks like. The tailors do all the fancy stitching where you can see it but where it doesn’t matter they are like “fuck it whatever”.
You can machine wash suit trousers. I do it all the time. It’s just the jackets that you have to be careful with.
suits actually can be washed but not in a washing machine. i worked at an opera house and the costume department washed everything! they had these huge sort of table-sinks where they hand-washed items in just a few inches of water and then hang then to dry. it was very interesting, actually as many of the items were quite fragile.
A good suit is shaped with steam when it’s made. If you wash it, the shaping is undone and you end up with a soft bag.
So here’s the thing – if you’re willing to possibly ruin the suit, if it’s made from polyester like a lot of women’s suits are – give the washing machine a try.
Because often it’s just fine.
My kids love thrift store finds and I ALWAYS put those items into the wash when we get home, and they turn out fine. I have washed prom and bridal dresses in the washing machine too.
Here is what I wouldn’t put into the machine:
>> Wool, unless I’m deliberately trying to shrink / felt it (which I’ve done and it’s cool to see if you did it intentionally; it’s awful if you didn’t mean to do it 🤣)
>> Anything with delicate beading
Remember – ONLY do this if you are ok with possibly ruining the item.
I washed the bridal gown only because it had been in a flood and it was either try to clean it or throw it away. In that case, I detached the beaded top, which hadn’t been in the flood water (bridal gowns are designed to be separated like this – it’s how they shorten dresses), and washed the bottom inside out with no other items in the load. Turned out fine.
The prom dress was washed by itself, turned outside out, as well. It came out perfect.
Every suit/vest/dress item my kids have brought home from the thrift store have washed fine too.
Your mileage may vary. Proceed at your own risk ⛔️
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