How to Fold a Suit, According to King Charles’ Former Suit Maker
Suits are incredibly complex garments, and most (even affordable, off-the-rack ones) usually have some degree of internal structure to help them drape well. This means that haphazardly folding your suit and smushing it between your toiletry bag and a pile of T-shirts can leave hard-set wrinkles in the fabric and change the way the jacket wears.
To keep your suit looking sharp, use Tom’s favorite suit-packing accessories: a few pairs of socks and a sweater “rolled up like a sausage.”
Folding these garments into your suit creates a softer landing for the fabric and also supports the suit’s structure.
To fold a suit like a Savile Row tailor, lay the suit flat on a table, and align the jacket’s front as if it were buttoned (but don’t button it).
Then smooth out the sleeves so that they are lying totally flat on the table, maintaining their natural curve.
Take a pair of rolled socks, and slip them into the area where the sleeve meets the shoulder (this helps maintain the shape of the jacket’s shoulder). You can also put a pair of unfolded socks into the sleeve itself for some additional padding.
Place a rolled-up sweater horizontally across the waist of the jacket, and, holding the sleeves and the hem, fold the jacket in half so that the sweater is sitting in the fold.
Using another rolled-up sweater or T-shirt, place it vertically down the now-folded jacket, and fold it in on itself again.
To fold your pants, flatten them on a table along the crease. Place a pair of unfolded socks across the pants, roughly at the midpoint, and fold the trousers in half. Then, using another pair of socks placed at the new midpoint, fold them over once more.
The result is a suit folded into a neat parcel with a small footprint. When packing the folded suit, try to rest it on a flat surface of clothes within the bag itself.
