Non-iron

In my lads chat, we make fun of the ads for trousers and shirts we get advertised on Instagram. It's always some douchey guy putting on trousers and raving about them. Recently, an ad with a guy advertising non-iron shirts was shared by my friend. This reminded me of that time in around 2015, when I had my first job out of grad school when I had to wear collared shirts to work everyday, and then found non-iron shirts for the first time. I bought them online from a company called Ministry of Supply. The ad said that the founder used to work at NASA and the material the shirts were made from was kind of based on his experiences at NASA. They said you could run a marathon in their office wear. They were kind of just synthetic like football shirts. I bought one, and then on a work trip to DC I bought some more at the Ministry of Supply store. I liked that the color always popped, unlike with normal cotton shirts that lose their color after pretty much a few washes or white shirts that always get really fuzzy if you don't have them professionally dry cleaned. But they did kind of feel damp and weird, because they were not moisture wicking. Still, I wore them a lot to work, because I paid a lot of money for them and because I felt good about having 'hacked' the whole wearing shirts to the office thing, for they were also non-ironing and they dried extremely quickly without using a dryer, which is a major issue in the UK. Ironing also does take quite a lot of time, there's a real skill to it. I was never very good at it. You also need an ironing board and an iron to iron a shirt. This ties you down.

These Ministry of supply shirts are still in my closet- I haven't worn them in years. Another issue with them was that though the color popped even after many washes, the collar didn't pop at all. Flappy collars are the worst. I tried to upgrade them at a tailor in London using 'The Million Dollar Collar' I had found online. They still didn't quite pop unfortunately. That's why I think Oxford Button down shirts (where the button attaches the tip of the collar to the shirt, is the way to go). After the Ministry of Startups shirts, I found Oxford button down non-iron cotton shirts that are much nicer on the skin. I don't like having anything on my skin of my upper body that is not cotton- synthetic shirts kind of make me feel damp. But the issue with cotton shirts is that the white shirts again get really fuzzy if you wash them at home. Black loses color really quickly so they're out too. The light blue ones are best, it's not so obvious that they lose the color over time. You can get 3 of them for like 120 currency units (it's all at parity now anyway) across the Western world. It's important that you know the fit. If you gain weight they'll look bad, and I've had some people comment on my too tight shirt. Shameful. They should bring back the giant fit like they used to wear before the 1990s. I think J Crew is trying to. I've imported some giant fit chinos and have worn them a few times but I'm not sure I'm good at pulling them off. I think they also have giant fit shirts. I would be tempted to get one but...

Most recently, I've discovered Merino Wool. Merino wool you don't have to wash at all, it doesn't smell. Sheep wear it. They do smell a bit to be fair, but evolution optimized the material to reduce parasitic and bacterial load while keeping you warm. I've bought t-shirts, merino wool socks, sweaters, and now a merino wool collared shirt. I thought I don't like to have wool on my skin because it would be itchy, but merino wool is not. It's moisture wicking. My feet feel much less damp. It's a game changer to a game I'm kind of late to. Some rat/EA was an early adopter and already had it in 2015 (he only had 100 things and was living from a bag, and bought crypto then). He sent a slack message at a retreat asking if anyone had seen his merino wool sock. I thought that was pathetic somehow. I always thought 'If you can't afford to lose it' don't buy it. Like I don't like owning things that are so expensive that I would get upset over breaking or losing them. My dad once got really upset with my sister breaking some thingy that connected the car electricity to the trailer. It was like 50 euros. But back to merino wool: I found an oxford button down merino wool shirt in light blue recently. It's non-iron. You don't have to wash it (unless you spill stuff on it, which is a bit anxiety inducing). Just air it out. They're very expensive though- like 120 quid or something, which has a high counterfactual, but then you do save a lot of time on washing, so maybe it's worth it? Probably, actually. I'm only on my first shirt so I'm not sure if I've really cracked it, but I'm somewhat confident that I have. I can now turn 40 resting assured that I'm a real man. My dad would be proud of me, he too was always obsessed with hacking the ironing process when he was still working. He had to iron shirts for decades. He always did it in front of the TV though on Sunday nights and seemed to not have such a bad time doing it. But it is a chore and so on several occasions, many years ago, he excitedly told me about ironing machines that he saw in the city at some dry cleaning store, that are kind of puppets that you pull a shirt over and then they are inflated and emit steam to iron the shirt without you having to do anything. He said at some point in the future no one would have to iron anymore. Only a few years ago he bought one of those, because they mass produce them now, in asia I reckon, for probably less than 100 euros retail. I don't think he ever used his machine much, because it probably doesn't work as well as ironing by hand, I think he might have said something to that effect, so now the machine is still sitting in our guest room. But it was worth a shot.

The thing is: I don't know about the light blue Merino wool button down non-iron non-wash shirt yet. Yes you don't have to iron or wash it and so the collar always pops and so does the color (for you don't need to wash it often). But they are pretty expensive and maybe I would be upset if I ripped them or something and unleashed the inner Hulk in me. And also yeah they do feel fresh after several wears but maybe not quite as fresh as freshly washed cotton? Maybe I'll go back to cotton or something else, who knows. They're only £39.99 per shirt. I'm only 39. I'm not done exploring.