On Sunday I went up to CleanEx in Ascott with Vicki, Roni and Pierre. If you’ve never heard of it, CleanEx is the UK show for laundry, dry cleaning and textile care. It’s where you see equipment running, talk to suppliers face-to-face, and pick up on the small changes happening behind the scenes. The ones that end up affecting how garments look and feel when they come back to you. It’s not a “big reveal” sort of day. It’s more like a good service MOT. You go, you look closely

Modern denim is rarely pure cotton. Most jeans today include a blend of fibres such as elastane, polyester or plant-based synthetics like Plantex to add stretch, strength and comfort. These fibres react very differently to water and heat. When you wash and dry jeans, each layer shrinks or relaxes at its own rate.

Most days we rush through small jobs without thinking about them. We fold a shirt, wipe a mark, hang a coat back up and our mind is already on the next thing. I do it too. But on our trip to India, Pierre and I walked into a public laundry in Fort Kochi and it made me slow down. The place is called Dhoby Khana Public Laundry. Fort Kochi has layers of history in it and one of those layers is Dutch. The Dutch took control of Kochi in the 1660s, after the Portuguese and parts of

Some things in life just work better when they’re supported properly like your coat, your favourite blouse, the trousers that fit you perfectly. This isn’t a grand guide to wardrobe design, just a calm, practical look at which hangers help your clothes last longer and look better.