Say goodbye to dry cleaning with the brand’s new machine-washable tailoring.

As a statement of blindingly obvious common sense, “don’t put your suit in the washing machine” is right up there with “don’t stare directly into the sun”. It’s the cardinal sin of laundry, the one thing that everybody knows you should never, ever do. And it’s exactly what BOSS, the German master of clean-cut menswear, wants you to do to its new, machine-washable suit. Before we get into why this might not actually be as crazy an idea as it sounds, let’s get technical for a moment and take a look at what happens when you put a standard, “dry-clean only” suit jacket in the washing machine. As you’ve probably guessed, the results aren’t pretty.

When agitated by hot water, woollen fibres can rub against each other and become entangled, causing the fabric to pill up and contract. And that’s just half of the problem. While this happens to the outer fabric of your jacket, the inner, polyester-blend lining stays more or less exactly the same size. Because these two layers are stitched together, the jacket doesn’t just get smaller as it shrinks; it wrinkles, puckers and pulls itself out of shape. Throw in an interlining, the layer concealed between the lining and the suit fabric that lends tailored jackets their structure, and things get uglier still. Then, of course, there are the shoulder pads, which are also made of wool and contract when exposed to hot water. You get the picture.

All of which makes BOSS’s washable suit something of a quiet achievement. Quiet, because on the face of it, it’s just a suit. A smartly tailored one, sure, but this is BOSS we’re talking about; that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. What’s really interesting about it is what you do to it when it’s in need of a clean. You just... put it in the washing machine. Then, when the cycle’s finished – 30°C is fine – you take it out and hang it up to dry. And it’s not ruined at all. In fact, it looks just as good as it ever did.

Now, this is by no means the world’s first machine-washable suit. But while lesser brands might attempt to solve the problem of fibre shrinkage by increasing the polyester content of the suit fabric, BOSS uses 100 per cent virgin wool, meaning that it looks and feels like a premium garment. The secret is the high-twist yarn, which draws the fibres closer together and prevents droplets of water from penetrating the fabric. (A more extreme example of the water-resistant properties of high-twist yarns is gabardine, a tightly wound woollen fabric traditionally used to make raincoats.)

It may not sound like rocket science, but this one detail – combined with a few other smart touches on the part of the BOSS design team, such as a soft, deconstructed shoulder – effectively means that you’ll never have to take your suit to the dry-cleaner again. And, as anyone who’s ever stumped up for a same-day service at the last minute will tell you, that’s a far more significant life upgrade than it sounds. No, really.

Picture the scene: it’s Sunday afternoon and you’ve just arrived home from a friend’s wedding. You thought that you’d managed to keep your suit clean, but on closer inspection you realise that it’s been splashed with champagne and it’s in no shape to wear to the office tomorrow. To make matters worse, you’re due to leave for a three-day business trip and you’re going to need both of your suits. What do you do? Spot clean and hope for the best?

Realising in situations such as these that you don’t actually need to schedule an emergency visit to the dry-cleaner and that you can, in fact, just launder your suit in the comfort of your own home, feels like the time you made the switch from dial-up to broadband. (“What? You mean I can download a movie in less than a day?”)

When we talk about innovation in tailoring, we’re usually referring to something Maison Margiela or Comme des Garçons did in the 1990s – an evolution of form, in other words, rather than function. But for all the impact that these avant-garde designers had on the fashion industry, how much did their efforts to subvert the traditional silhouette actually change our lives? A machine-washable suit, on the other hand, may not appear innovative – but it will make a tangible improvement to your daily life. The only downside? Figuring out how to break the news to your dry-cleaner.

** Shop the BOSS collection here **