How to Shrink Clothing

Video Transcript

"Hi. I'm Debrah DeMirza at Deluxe Fashion Boutique in Eugene, Oregon. And I'm going to let you know how you can shrink an item of clothing. If you want an overall shrink you'd have to obviously start out with a fabric that will shrink. Like a natural cotton or wool. And to shrink the overall garment you would put it in a hot dryer. If you want it to fade you would put it in a hot wash and a hot dryer but I usually just put it in a hot dryer after a cold wash and it'll still shrink as much as you want it to be shrunk without losing the color. Okay now if you have a wool garment you can shrink it, part of it by getting the fabric wet, or damp. You can towel dry it. And then you can actually manipulate the fabric together with your hands and just kind of press it together and it will actually dry smaller in areas. You can shrink parts of a shirt. Maybe it fits fine on the bust but it's too wide on the waist and then that way you can manipulate the fabric by just bringing it close together. Kind of patting it. And then leaving it to air dry. Turning it over after the first day and then let it dry slowly. And that works basically with wool. With some cottons if it's a loose weave you might be able to do some vertical stretching and that'll bring it in more closely to the body. But mainly wool will be the one that works best when you try to manipulate it by hand in certain areas and let it dry slowly. So that's how you would shrink a garment."