, but as an act of pure, Zen-like meditation. It is worth saying that I am not good at it: I probably watch the online video 'How to iron a shirt in 2 minutes' about once a week, and still rotate shirts around, re-creasing them as I go, getting the apparently non-negotiable order (collar, yoke, sleeves, front, back) wrong and making a Sisyphean task of it. To me, a shirt is never ironed, it is abandoned. But I love it, steaming through the pile, creating some order in the world. Beer on the table; pile of washing on the chair; headphones in; mellowed out. If there is a better way to spend a Sunday evening, write in. My current board, for those curious, is fuchsia-coloured. It has the words 'Keep Calm and Iron){kind=link}
Old hand Christopher Howse and young gun Guy Kelly consider the merits of ironing
There is plenty about modern life to cause celebration and aggravation in equal measure… but it is never safe to make an assumption about how the different generations feel about anything from vegans to scented candles. In their latest look at the way we live now, our columnist duo contemplate the merits of de-wrinkling.
– Christopher Howse
The Paris fashion shows this autumn featured clothes with creases. It’s a look. A fashion-ista commented: ‘Dishevelled but very expensive is how someone shows that they’re rich.’
Nothing is too absurd for fashion, but I think we have been here before, or close. Samuel Pepys visited Spain in 1684 and observed that a Spaniard ‘won’t mend his clothes’, but would rather have a hole than a patch. Still, he also observed that there were ‘no chamber pots in all the country’, and I’m not sure that was strictly true.