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Maintain your woollens

Hand Washing

• Before washing sweaters, turn sweaters inside out and sew buttonholes together, so they won’t stretch during laundering.
• Don’t soak them for more than an hour; 30 minutes is best
• Keep sweaters underwater while washing them.
• Lifting the garments in and out of water strains the elasticity of wool.
• Don’t wring out excess water after washing.
• Place the wet sweater on a large towel, roll up the towel and press it.
• Never hang washed sweaters on the line or a hanger - dry flat on a flat surface, shaping the sweater in original shape.
• When half-dried, turn it around.
• Woollens should be put in the shade to dry.
• Always iron woollen garments on the wrong side, over a damp cloth, else the wool will loose its shape, softness and elasticity.

Machine washing

• Fill the washer with lukewarm water. Add a mild soap and let the washer agitate for a few minutes to mix well. Stop the washer and put your sweaters in.
• Put your hands into the washer and manipulate the sweater, washing it by using your fingers. If your sweaters washed the sweaters turn your dial and the washer to the final spin cycle. Let the washer spin the water out of the sweaters.
• Next, take the sweaters out of the washer and refill the washer with water again. Rinse the sweaters well, taking care not to be rough or stretch them too much. You may rinse twice, but usually one rinse suffices.
• After the final rinse take the sweaters out of the washer and lay them out on a flat surface to dry over a large towel as in hand wash.

Maintain coats and jackets

• Hang up coals and jackets on a strong, good-quality wooden lhanger (metal hangers dig I into wool).

• Never dump them [lest they lose shape.

• I Air frequently-worn coats [in the sun periodically to I freshen.

• Brush off with a chillies brush periodically, especially at the collars, cuffs [andonpoekei openings.

• Keep sparingly-used coats covered in cloth [bags (not plastic). Let these breathe.

• Clean problem areas such as collars, cuffs, top of pocket openings with kerosene (white petrol). Also, lreal any stain immediately so that it does not set in.

EN 13402 - A European Clothing Size Standard

EN 13402 is a European standard for labeling clothes sizes. It is based on body dimensions, measured in centimetres. It aims to replace many older national dress-size systems, starting in the year 2006.

There are three approaches for size-labeling of clothes:

• body dimensions: The product label states for which range of body dimensions the product was designed. (Example: bike helmet labelled “head girth: 56–60 cm”, shoe labeled “foot length: 28 cm”)
• product dimensions: The label states characteristic measures of the product. (Example: jeans labeled with their inner-leg length in centimeters or inches, i.e. not the – several centimeters longer – inner leg length of the intended wearer)
• ad-hoc size: The label provides a size number or code with no obvious relationship to any measurement. (Example: Size 12, XL)

Traditionally, clothes have been labeled using many different ad-hoc size systems. This approach has led to a number of problems:

• Country-specific or even vendor-specific labels create additional costs.
• Ad-hoc sizes have changed with time, often due to “vanity labelling”, an inflation in body dimensions associated with a size, to avoid confronting aging customers with uncomfortable anthropometric truths.
• Mail-order purchasing requires accurate methods for predicting the best-fitting size.
• Many garments need to be selected based on two or three body dimensions to fit adequately, and not a single scalar.
• Scalar ad-hoc sizes based on 1950s anthropometric studies are no longer adequate, as changes in nutrition and life styles have shifted the distribution of body dimensions.

Therefore, the European standards body CEN started in 1996 the process of designing a new modern system of labeling clothes sizes, resulting in the standard EN 13402 “Size designation of clothes”.

It is based on:

• body-dimensions
• the metric system (SI - The International System of Units (abbreviated SI from the French language name Système International d’Unités))
• data from new anthropometric studies of the European population performed in the late 1990s
• similar existing international standards (ISO 3635, etc.)

The EN 13402 standard consists of four parts: