Can Your Dress Stand Up By Itself?

It’s been a while since I tackled female clothing in the workplace, but it’s time for me to bring it up again. However, this time it’s not due to some crazy outfit someone tried to pass off as “professional.” I would like to pose a question to all the ladies out there who work in an office setting that requires suits or an equal female equivalent. How often do you dry clean your work clothes?

I know many of us can’t get home fast enough to get changed into something that is less restricting…or at least that’s me. After a whole day of fitted blazers and dresses I can’t wait to rush home and thrown on something to run in. I’ll also admit that I’m not one to toss a dress or jacket into the dry cleaning pile after only one usage. Dry cleaning isn’t cheap and it’s hard for me to justify that my dress is all that dirty after a whole day of work inside a hotel that has the air conditioning set in the low seventies. Most people around me never see me without a blanket while at my desk. My Fibromyalgia isn’t too keen on the temperature gauge in the office and tends to start a war in my joints if I don’t bundle up during the times I do get to sit at my desk, but that’s a whole other story.

My detail oriented ways can slide into my life in the weirdest ways sometimes and it has most definitely entered my clothing selection process. I’m surprised that people at work haven’t noticed yet after a year of working in the same place, but I do have a bit of a clothing rotation. I do this to ensure I get the best usage out of all of my dresses and that I don’t wear out a favorite faster than any of the others. It also aids in me knowing when things need to go to the dry cleaner without me having to do a sniff check like a teenage boy.

During lunch recently a coworker admitted that she had owned her current work outfit for more than eight months and yet had never taken any of it to a dry cleaner. I will give her the benefit of the doubt that all of her shirts can be washed at home, but how do you explain the dresses and jackets? At first I immediately thought I wasn’t so weird for having my clothing rotation and taking an item to the dry cleaner after only one use. However, then I started to wonder how long is too long before getting work clothes cleaned.

Therefore, ladies I’m turning to you. How often do you wear an item to work before it goes into your dry cleaning pile? Once? Three times? Eight months?