Formal Dress Desaigns

There's no worse feeling than opening your wardrobe to decide which of your formal dresses to wear to an important engagement tomorrow and finding that the one you settle on is all creased.

Perhaps there isn't time to send it to the dry cleaner's, so what do you do? Panic?Wear a dress that you don't want to? Risk looking like a slob?

No!

Did you know that it's possible to steam iron a formal dress in the comfort of your own home yourself? In this article we're going to look at just how you can do this in a hurry and avoid embarrassment at your important party:

A Traditional Hand-Held Iron Isn't Suitable For Formal Dresses

Most of us have an iron already, but formal dresses are quite complicated and large, with many different elements (such as bodice and skirt) that have different folds, seams and positions. That's why traditional hand-held irons aren't going to cut it, as you'll struggle to press all of the individual ruffles and other decorative elements of the dress.

Formal dresses may also be made of very delicate fabric, so by ironing by hand you actually run the risk of damaging your beautiful gown!

Use A Commercial Clothing Steamer

You might not be familiar with commercial clothing steamers unless you've seen them in use in stores. They look a little like a hoover, but instead of sucking in air they blow steam out of an attachment at the end of a long handle. This allows you to hang formal dresses naturally and then run the steam over them in a sweeping motion. This will press your dress perfectly and will in no way endanger the fabric as it's not touching.However, be sure to hold the steamer away from the fabric to avoid water droplets splashing which could stain it.

Try The 'Hot Shower Routine'

You might wonder how having a shower has anything to do with pressing a dress! However, if you ever noticed the steam from the shower steaming up your mirror then you'll know that there's a lot of steam in the air if you've had a long hot shower.

You can use this by-product to your advantage by hanging creased formal dresses in the bathroom and then treating yourself to a nice, relaxing shower.

You'll find that after a while the creases have disappeared and of course there's no risk of damaging the fabric since the steam in the air has done the job of ironing for you!

Hang Out!

Believe it or not, simply hanging formal dresses in a dry room overnight will be enough for the creases to fall out. An airing cupboard would be ideal for this.

Just make sure that the dress is allowed to hang fully and the skirt isn't bunching up on the floor for best results.