Why wasting your life ironing is more absurd than chasing cheese.
Think of a woman from the 1950s. Who do you have in mind? Marilyn Monroe? Grace Kelly? Or how about that classic image of the overworked, under-stimulated ‘50s housewife? Prim, proper and pinny-clad, she’s chained to the kitchen sink and drowning under a pile of ironing – mostly her husband’s shirts. We’ve come a long way since then, but ironing is still a horrific blight on civilised life. Frankly, it’s a right pain in the pinny.
Back then, it was just the women who had to deal with it. Now, it’s us men too. That’s not quite the idea of social progress, is it? Nobody should have to do any ironing at all! It must be the most absurd activity that the human race has ever invented, and we came up with chasing cheese down a hill.
I don’t understand it. The whole thing is so illogical. You’ve washed and dried your clothes and that should be enough. But you then have to spend precious time smoothing them over with a hissing, steaming hunk of metal, just to get out all the little wrinkles; wrinkles which then reform within minutes of wearing the clothes anyway. It’s madness. It’s futile. The fact that we all do it is a sort of collective insanity.
And yet, if you should dare to omit this critical step from your laundering and go around in un-ironed clothes you’ll be a laughing stock, quite literally. Once when I was temping in an insurance office, some poor sap (not me) came in wearing an un-ironed shirt and a group of five fully-grown men absolutely ripped it out of him. Their mirth was positively malicious. “Oh, get a life!” you might say to them. And you’d be right. But you can’t deny that crinkly clothes make a bad impression....
Read the complete article at Menswear Style, an online men's fashion and lifestyle magazine and one of the leading digital publications in the UK.