Jacket folding video from Till

Here’s our first exclusive OBOW video - thanks to Till. It’s a demo of a jacket folding technique he found here. Try it out and let us know what you think. Enjoy.

(Video has no sound)

Update on August 14, 2009 by Frank@OBOW

Look for more OBOW video content soon. I established a YouTube account long ago but did nothing with it. Thanks to Till for spurring me into action.

Comments

[Buzz]

I remember learning to fold and pack a jacket inside out, just like in the video, about 30 years ago. If you really want to keep it from getting wrinkled, wrap it in a dry-cleaners bag. It takes up no extra room. No dry cleaner bag, use a plastic trash bag.

[Till]

Yes, a dry cleaner bag would certainly be a good idea. They say that in the notes. This is perhaps the technique I see recommended most often. I have never been able to figure it out from just text instructions. But the link provided has has two different text instructions AND a diagram. So that was enough even for me to understand. :)

I have not yet actually packed and traveled with a suit coat and this technique, so I leave the final verdict to those who have and for when I will have used it. I do know that my "suit-able" technique from the other posts does give very good results.

This one is nice because you do not need to lay down the jacket for folding. It is probably a bit quicker, too, if seconds count. The jacket almost folds naturally in that position. The inside out method is practically the same approach as in the Suit-able technique.

I have included no music because I am a bloody video beginner and don't know how to do that. I have also refrained from giving spoken instructions because I didn't want to confuse things. There are now two written instructions, a diagram and a video available. That should do.

I hope this helps those people who travel without a garment bag. Garment bags are pretty need devices but they are not very efficient in terms of volume/weight ratio, thus not ideal for onebagging.

[Paula S]

"Actions speak louder than words" - Excellent Till, very easy to follow!
Have you done this before, you give a nice flourish when turning the jacket. Hmmm, I can see your next youtube videos.....modelling travel clothes? Packing a carry-on bag? ;-)

[Till]

Thanks for the flourish compliment. ;) This is actually the third time in my life I am folding a jacket like that. The first time was to see if I had even understood the technique. The second time was to see which movements I would have to do to show off the technique. The third time is caught on video. Guess I just like to handle clothes.

I thought about a video of packing a suitcase but my instructions in the FT thread are pretty clear.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-products/957505-packing-techniques-good-22-a.html

What I could do is a video of how to wrap a suit around an EC shirt folder. We'll see. I also want to try that technique in the video on a long dress coat. I think it should work.

[Michael W.]

While I'm not likely to fold and pack a suit jacket or sport jacket - I am VERY interested in how to pack a casual jacket (Eisenhower style wind jacket) so it arrives at the other end of 19 hours of flights fairly wrinkle-free.

If I wear it on the plane, it will get wrinkles from all the sitting, and I don't feel good about stowing it in the overhead bin - too many cases of it slipping down and getting stompled by other peoples bags, or soiled from dirt in the bin or on other peoples bags.

(For in flight warmth, I carry and wear, as required, an ultrathin, ultralight Marmot Ion unlined nylon windshirt. This doubles as my rain piece at the destination, and since it has a hood, can also keep the light out of my eyes while sleeping - although I usually use a watchcap, rolled down, for that. This windshirt also works as a minor "vapor barrier" to help keep the zone next to my skin higher in humidity than usual on flights, where the high altitude air is notoriously dry.)

So your tip on jacket folding is VERY helpful. Thank you! And thanks especially for making a video, a YouTube clip is worth a thousand pictures.

Finally, thanks for reminding me of the "dry cleaners" bag tip. I used to wonder why that trick helps keep out wrinkles - I've always conceptually focused on wrinkles coming from the pressure of clothes stacked on top of one another, and from that point of view the dry cleaners bag wouldn't seem to help much.

Then I figured out that the dry cleaners bag adds a little "slipperiness" to the jacket bundle, so that if there is any inside-the-bag garment shifting, the fabric layers of the jacket or other bagged piece are less likely to bind on each other, bunch up, and hence wrinkle - wrinkles come from 3 sources: folds, compression (stacking pressure) and fabric bunching (the mechanics mimic a simple fold).

For this reason - to avoid layers shifting over each other and bunching - it is generally better to bag THEN fold, rather than fold then bag. In the perfect world, dry cleaning bags would look like the Michelin man, with separate "slots" for each arm of our jackets, but alas that isn't the case. So the best we can do is "bag" our garments early in the folding stage, at least the more wrinkle prone items (I don't think bagging my Dockers will help much, they are less prone to shifting and bunching in the first place).

For those of you who still like garment bags - I am on the fence about them, I've always had one in my collection but seldom, in practice, use them - RedOxx has a bare-bones, budget garment bag that has almost no features (just an outside zipper slot where you could stick some dress shirts if (a) we still wore dress shirts and (b) cleaners still returned them folded instead of on hangers) for just $75 (I own one and it is the usual RedOxx built like a brick you-know-what):

http://www.redoxx.com/Airline-Carry-On-Luggage/Gypsy-Suit-Cover/91036-Suit%20Cover/100/Product

[Till]

MIchael, thanks for the excellent comment. You have explained the wrinkle causes very well. Basically if you avoid bunching and sharp creases by cushioning, separating, stabilizing and keeping things slippery at the same time (that's the conceptually hard part), wrinkles can be avoided to a good degree but never completely.

The Redoxx garment bag I find very expensive for what it is. Check out Wallybags garment bags instead.

In folding any garment it is good to just lay it down on a clean surface and figure out how it folds best. There are natural crease lines that follow the pattern of the cut. Usually one starts by taking the body in and giving it straight edges. Then one folds the sleeves. And lastly the garment is folded onto itself.

When folding shirts a good tip is to actually fold two shirts together. Lay the bigger and thicker one on the bottom, face down. Then put the smaller or thinner one on top, also face down. Now fold the two shirts together as if they were one. One shirt will cushion the other shirt. It is like putting a layer of silk/tissue paper between them. That's what butlers would do. For me, it's just too much trouble.

[RALPH]

This a good way to fold a suit coat or sports jacket to keep it wrinkle free. I know it as the Brooks Brothers fold from when I had a summer job at its NYC store some 50 years ago. Brooks suit department did not have the suits on racks. Rather it had the suit jackets folded on tables the way it is shown in the video but without that final doubling over fold. The sales person would take a customer down the table loking strictly at fabric. When one was chosen then its ticket would be given to a nearby stockroom from where the exact match to the pants would be found.

I use that fold extensively for packing and for dropping a blazer or suitjacket in the back seat of a car or in the overhead rack of a commuter train. When packing in a suitcase it is best to have it in a divided compartment with slacks. The Dakine rollons offer a 70/30 split in compartments. I recentty got a Rick Steve roll-on and either will slip a blazer in one of the large zipped areas or use an Eagle Creek double cube (with some soft stuff added to prevent shifting of the blazer.

[John H]

Excellent technique, it works -- I've packed jackets this way for years; learned from watching a guy at Brooks Brothers pack a jacket for mailing.

[Till]

Thanks for the positive feedback. I have just traveled for more than three weeks with a suit in the suiter compartment of my Plat5. I did NOT take the suiter insert along but folded the suit with the technique above. It came out just fine. The only thing that appeared was a crease along one of the sleeves. Not a hard crease but still a very long one along the folding line. This didn't happen every time but often enough to be noticeable. I will have to be more careful exactly how I fold the sleeve in.

I also found that it is easily possible to wrap the pants around the jacket. Works very nicely.

[Jan M]

I have used this folding technique to pack a suit for my husband for a business trip. He prefers to travel with his backpack, so I use the bundle method of wrapping for his shirts, undies and suit trousers. Then I fold the jacket as shown in the first part of the video, but roll it around the bundle instead of doing the final fold. I then use his belt to veeeerrrry gently hold the bundle together so it doesn't unroll when I put in in his backpack.

[Till]

That's a super good idea. Thank you!

[crpeck]

Just a quick note, this video showed up on Lifehacker this morning. Congrats Till!
http://lifehacker.com/5723295/fold-a-suit-coat-for-packing-the-right-way

[PO]

Where did he get that shirt :)