There are two types of people in life. There are the clothes-preservers – those who manage to wear things carefully, take them off carefully, store them carefully and generally breeze through life with creases in all the right places and no egg down their top. They are the ones who can buy £300 Chanel sunglasses and actually call them ‘an investment’, confident they won’t sit on them or leave them on the bus before the week is out. They’re the people 15 denier tights were made for. The ones who wear white trousers on their period, then casually order meatballs at lunch.
And then, there are people like me: the clothes-ruiners.
We have the best of intentions, but the snaggiest of nails. We spill. We tear. We bust zips. We do DIY seamstress jobs with superglue and kitchen scissors, five minutes after we should have left the house. We forget to cut off the hanging hoops, but always lose the spare buttons. We look down towards the end of a formal evening and notice a stain we can trace back to a lunch two weeks ago (mm, meatballs). We follow washing instructions to the letter and still end up with a dress only a doll can wear.
Ever since I put my heel through the chiffon hem of my high school prom dress before I'd even arrived at the venue, I've known my fate is sealed. I will buy beautiful things, and I will accidentally fuck them up.
But there's hope! Here's the essential kit you need on standby if you're a clothes-ruiner too.
Safety pins
If I had a pound for every time I’ve needed a safety pin and not had one, I could… well, buy a skirt with a working zip. For all we know, Liz Hurley’s iconic 1994 Versace dress was just the work of a clothes-ruiner in a red carpet emergency (though all the white jeans of her later years would suggest otherwise.)
To be on the safe side, it’s a good idea to stockpile not just the tiny, bendy kind but also a good, solid safety pin that could sub in for a button or hold a whole skirt together in dire straits. Hobby craft can sort you out with all sizes and colours, while John Lewis even have a decorative bejewelled pin for fancy occasions.
Safety pins, £1.80 at www.hobbycraft.co.uk
Decorative safety pin, £38.95 at www.johnlewis.com
An emergency sewing kit
As well as being handy for patching your own wardrobe back together, an emergency sewing kit will always make you friends. You might have to wait a while, but one day the cry for help will come – maybe a split seam at the office, maybe a broken strap a party, maybe a weeping bride, hiding in the loos – and you will be there to save the day, like a total hero.
This one has everything you need in good, sturdy metal, and is small and discreet enough to stash in your bag without advertising to the world that you’re a disaster zone. You’ll walk a little taller just knowing it’s there.
Merchant & Millsrapid repair kit, £15 at www.liberty.co.uk.
A sweater stone
When you’re a clothes-ruiner, jumpers and wool coats tend to turn bobbly before you’ve even got them home. Somewhere along the way you might have heard that the way to deal with this is to shave your knitwear with a razor. Do not do this. You’ll end up turning your cashmere to Swiss cheese and your razor into something that gives more fluff than it removes – and if it sounds like I’m speaking from experience, that’s because I am.
Instead, invest in this handsome sweater stone from Labour & Wait. It’s made of pumice, to exfoliate and smooth out tired knitwear in the same way you would your face. (Do not use it on your face.)
Sweater stone, £8 at www.labourandwait.co.uk
Laundry bags
While Bob Dylan asked how many roads a man must walk down, I ask how many of her favourite bras a woman must accidentally ruin before she finally gives in and starts washing them in a delicates bag. Seven? 12? 32?
Anyway, get yourself one and never jab yourself with an exposed underwire again.
Extra-care lingerie wash bag, £4.15 at www.lakeland.co.uk
Stain remover wipes
Because for non-Time Lords, there is no thrill closer to time travel than being able to erase a sriracha spillage from your crotch like it never even happened.
On The Spot stainremover cloths, £5.96 at www.lakeland.co.uk
Wundaweb
For everyone who has ever sighed over an unravelled hem or an awkward-length top and thought “why can’t I just stick it up with tape?”, I am here today to say: you can. Meet Wunderweb, the lazy gal’s tailor. Just tuck it into your hem, iron on both sides (and when I say ‘iron’ we all know I mean hair straighteners), marvel at how it costs approximately 50 times less than a sewing machine, and then sing the song:
“Because maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me…
I’m a sewing pleb – you’re my Wundaweb.”
Extra strong Wundaweb, £3.20 at www.johnlewis.com.
Patches
Thanks to the current '70s revival, patched denim is a legitimate style choice once more. Which is excellent news for clothes-ruiners everywhere, as iron-on patches allow us to cunningly conceal that nail polish stain while also subtly advertising how much we really, really want world peace.
And if the idea of rainbows and flags is a patchouli-whiff too far, it’s ok – you can get them in Liberty print.
Liberty print star andpeace motif patches, £7.95 each at www.liberty.co.uk
A clothes steamer
If you nodded sagely when I said that thing about the hair straighteners earlier – instead of the mature response, shrieking “what the ACTUAL?” – then my friend, you need a clothes steamer. Because while we can all agree that ironing will soon go the way of the fax machine and the mangle (seriously, any chore that demands setting up its own special little table is a chore you can live without), there will always be some clothes that look better without creases. And steaming is the quickest, easiest way to get rid of them – along with all the fragrant memories of Friday night, if the label says ‘dry clean only’ but your bank balance says ‘nope’.
You can buy portable travel steamers for as little as £15, but for real fashion credentials invest in the Fridja. You can tell people it’s an at-home spa treatment, if that helps.
Fridja professionalgarment steamer, £99 at www.fridja.com
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