PRACTICAL VIEW : Keeping the Crease

This spring, pleated skirts are as plentiful as they used to be at Catholic girls’ school. Today’s pleated skirts attract buyers of all ages and figure types, designers say. Anyone can slip on a short, pleated skirt and feel instantly energized.

Until, that is, they sit through gridlock on the San Diego Freeway and emerge to find their posterior pleatless. So, how does one keep pleats in their place?

“Man-made fibers hold pleats better,” says Francine Browner, president of the Francine Browner lines. “If (the label) says polyester, you’re in good shape and you will stay in good shape,” says Browner.

High on her forget-it list: linens and cottons. If you yearn for chiffon pleats, try polyester over its rayon cousin, she says. Rayon and acetate rate the lowest among the man-made fabrics in pleat-holding ability.

Professional dry cleaners recommend wool for its pleat-holding power. Velvet, they agree, is the worst choice. Having a pleated skirt dry-cleaned can cost about 1 1/2 times more than having a plain skirt cleaned.

“It’s very expensive to keep the pleats,” says Meera Cho, manager of Philip’s French Cleaners in Pacific Palisades. “It can take more than 1 1/2 hours to do a very pleated skirt, especially if it is silk. In the same time, I could clean and press 10 straight skirts.”

“Velvet pleats are extremely difficult to press,” adds Lois von Morganroth , owner of Brown’s Cleaners in Santa Monica.

Von Morganroth warns pleated-skirt fans against washing them at home: “It will be a disaster.” And to resist using anti-wrinkle sprays, which “relax the pleat and take the color out.”

Although dry-cleaning professionals frown on home wrinkle remedies, Browner suggests: “Put a book at the top of the pleats and pull them down flat.” Then iron gently, using a press cloth.