There are comparatively few men who can afford the luxury of a good valet, and that personage himself, when found thoroughly competent, is indeed a treasure. But it is an absurd mistake for any one to think that a valet is a necessity. If you take a quarter of an hour for the care of your clothes every day, you can be just as well turned out as if you hired an expensive servant. Even if you have indulged in the luxury of a valet, you yourself should know all about looking after your wardrobe.
Whenever you change your clothes you should first empty all your pockets. Then, as soon as each garment is removed, it should be vigorously shaken and brushed before it is folded and put away. Never hang coats, trousers, or waistcoats; always fold them. Wire coat hangers and trousers stretchers ruin clothes. Whisk brooms are useful only when an extra-vigorous treatment is desired. Take a clothes brush and give your coat, as soon as you take it off, a thorough brushing, and hold it to the light, so that no particle of dust may escape your eye. The coat is then folded exactly in half lengthwise, sleeve to sleeve, the lining on the outside. With evening coats it is sometimes necessary to fold the sleeves in half, owing to the shortness of the waist. In packing a trunk the same method is used, only the sleeves are stuffed with tissue paper to avoid possible wrinkles.
Large and bulky garments, such as overcoats and frock coats, should be folded in triplicate. Lay the coat flat on a table and first fold on both sides, the right and the left, so much of the lapel and collar lengthwise as will cover the sleeve. This will make two folds from the top of the collar to the bottom of the skirt. Then fold the coat again in half lengthwise, using the back as a hinge. You will find the same principle illustrated by a cook with a pancake. The waistcoat is folded in half, with the lining on the outside. Always take off your shoes and unbutton the braces before you remove your trousers, and fold them over the back of a chair, which is to serve you as a clothes rack. Take the trousers by the waist and place together the first two suspender buttons, one on the left and the other on the right. This will make the fold preserve the natural crease and dispose of the extra material, button and buttonhole tab at the waist. Trousers carefully folded will only need pressing about twice a year. Hose should be well shaken, and unless perfectly clean, thrown in the soiled-linen basket. Evening silk hose can be worn several times. The undervest, or undershirt, and the drawers should be also subjected to a vigorous shaking, and hung on the back of the same chair where you have already placed your hose. All these intimate garments are to be aired, and the chair on which you have hung them taken to the window.
Use a closet and a chest of drawers for your clothes. If you are in very limited quarters, six drawers and a trunk should be sufficient for all your belongings. The evening clothes occupy one drawer or shelf, and the morning and afternoon suits the other or two others. The remainder will be for linen, underclothing, ties, and handkerchiefs.
Between each suit of clothes there should be laid a newspaper; those publications which use the blackest of printer's ink—the surest antidote for moths—being the best for this purpose. Cover the top of each pile of clothes, when the drawer or shelf is full, with a clean towel.
In a chest with four drawers the bottom one should be used for underclothes, the top for handkerchiefs, hose, and ties, and the two intermediate for your linen. The closet will have to serve for your suits of clothes, or, in lieu of that, your trunk. Otherwise the last-mentioned receptacle is the place for clothes out of season, carefully laid away with a full complement of newspaper and camphor.
When you remove your shirt at night, or when you change for dinner, be careful to take out the buttons and sleeve links, unless you intend to wear the garment again. In that case, hang it up in your closet.
The first gift which a bachelor usually receives from his sister or his sweetheart is a handkerchief case, and I hardly need advise you to purchase what is a standard Christmas offering. Keep your handkerchiefs in this, your neatly folded ties in the second division of the drawer, and your hose in the third. If you should have a silver and plush pincushion with a movable top, your small articles of jewelry go in its interior, or in a small box in the top drawer.
Silk hats, Derbies, and Alpines or soft-felt hats should never be brushed with a whisk broom. A hatter will sell you for a small sum a soft brush with a pliable plush back, which will do for smoothing your silk hat, the bristles to be applied in removing the dust. A silk handkerchief will also smooth a silk hat. Frequent ironing destroys the nap. Straw hats can be cleaned by first rubbing them over with the half of a lemon, then taking an old nail brush and some brown soap and water and giving it a vigorous brushing. Then you should take heavy books and lay them on the brim of the hat. An old pincushion or several towels rolled into a firm ball, or a book which will fit exactly, should be placed inside the crown. Allow the hat to dry, and do not remove the weights until this is accomplished. You will find your straw as good as new and the shape preserved. The writer has tried this with great success.
Boots and shoes when not in use should be put on wooden trees to keep them in shape. As trees are rather expensive, one can use paper and stuff it inside the boot or shoe. This will not prove a bad substitute. With patent leathers, paper or cotton stuffed in the toes prevents the leather from wrinkling, and in this instance the very cheap material is better than the more expensive appliance. Patent leathers must be creamed and rubbed with a chamois cloth or linen or flannel rag after all mud and dust have first been removed. This operation should be repeated daily. Some men maintain that patent leathers should be varnished as soon as they come home from the bootmaker, but I disagree with them. A varnished patent leather has always a cheap look, and the coat of veneer is only applied as a last resort, to hide the cracks. Russet boots and shoes are treated daily with the special cream sold for them, which can be obtained at any bootmaker's or shoe shop. The price is small, and the stuff will last a long time. Russet boots, however, can be very well treated with a little vaseline, but that product will not give them the deep-brown color which is so fashionable. The soles of boots and shoes should be painted black. When a man is obliged to kneel in any ceremony, the sight of white or yellow gleaming soles is absurd.