Simple tips to make your dress clothes last longer

Dressed up or dressed down, you want your suits, pants, dresses and skirts to look good and provide years of long wear. Here's how to start.

• If you have a nice pair of silk, velvet, or satin pants don't hang them up.
• Hangers can badly damage and crease such fabrics.
• Just fold them neatly and place them in a dresser drawer. Pants made of more durable fabrics are best hung from the cuffs, with the inseams together.

• If you want that tweed or wool jacket to look as good as the day you brought it home, don't dry-clean it too often. If it's dirty, grab a stiff nonwire brush to clean it up.
• Chemicals in professional dry cleaning can wear the fabric out faster.

If you cut off a piece of fabric during your hemming job, keep the swatch. The material will come in handy when you need to repair holes and tears in the same garment.

Don't throw your favourite corduroy pants in the dryer. Line-dry them to keep the wales from flattening. Never wring those pants for the same reason.

Fabrics in three dimensions, such as corduroy and embroidery appliqués, will keep their shape if you iron them from the inside. Direct heat will crush them.

Your new skirt has a kick pleat in the back, but it threatens to rip apart after a few wears. Reinforce the top seam of the pleat so that it won't become a long slit the next time you wear the skirt.

• Before you hang your favourite white dress, skirt, or other white garment to store it for the summer, cover it with dark paper, such as package wrapping.
• This will prevent yellowing. Plastic wrap from the dry cleaners won't offer the same protection.

Don't lose that special belt that accessorizes your dress. Sew the belt to the belt loops of the dress, and you'll never have to worry about not being able to find that part of the dress again.

Before hanging up suit jackets and outerwear, perform a thorough pocket check. Remove everything from the pockets; then smooth the pockets flat.

There's nothing more annoying than waistbands that twist inside their casings. Avoid the problem by tacking the elastic at several points along the waistband casing to keep it in place and lying flat.

If your office chair is covered in plastic or leather, you may get a shiny seat on your pants. Avoid this wear by covering your chair with fabric or a seat cushion.

Moth larvae still hate the same stuff they always have. If you don't want the larvae feasting on your woolens, store them for the winter with moth flakes, mothballs or even bars of soap. Come spring, no holes.