Caring for Clothes

"It is not as hard to care for one's clothes as it is to get them in the first instance. Yet, often those who have the fewest garments take the least pains to preserve their freshness. Wealthy women having good maids have their gowns and bonnets looked after with a zealous skill that women who lack such service scarcely dream of. It is not wear that makes your best gown shabby in a couple of months,it is lack of care when it is off your back. If you fold it up or hang it, ten to one you do it badly. Hang all your dress waists and skirts but suspend them on coat hangers, not on hooks or nails. The way shopkeepers care for ready-wear garments is an excellent object lesson.
A large number of hangers can be bought for 50 cents, or if you are out of reach of the ready made articles, manufacture them. Half a barrel hoop with a loop of string in the middle makes a satisfactory substitute. Hanging only serves for heavy fabrics, not when they are of thin goods. In that case, garments are apt to become stringy. Light material must be folded, sleeves and bows stuffed out with tissue paper, and all given plenty of room.Skirt bags are a luxury, even a necessity for handsome garments. They are great square sacks of white cotton, longer than the skirts, and into which the skirt can be slipped without crushing. A sachet suspended in the center imparts to the skirt a fragrance which makes it as sweet and as fresh as a flower."