Stressed out homemakers can now take a break and
leave the iron in the closet. A new product from Siemens called "dressman"
will soon at least take over the chore of ironing shirts.
An Emnid survey confirms something we already know from personal
experience: Ironing is one of the household chores that people hate the
most. It also eats into precious free time, for even experienced ironers
need about eight minutes to press a shirt.
This new ironing assistant promises to deliver perfectly ironed shirts
in no time. In Germany Siemens sold about 4.000 units within a few
months. Now the company starts to market the device in other countries.
The equipment looks like the upper body of the mannequins you see in
store windows. A freshly washed shirt is simply pulled over the device,
and any wrinkles are smoothed out. Twelve fully automatic programs for
various types of shirts and materials take care of the rest: The shell
made of balloon silk literally inflates itself with hot air and gets the
shirts into shape. And the process is easy on the shirts because it uses
low temperatures. Broken buttons and un-sightly stains will also become
things of the past, and additional functions can dry wet jackets or air
out sports coats.
Up to now, such automatic ironing systems have been available only for
professional cleaners and laundries. These use high pressure and are
hard on the material as a result. They are also big and expensive. The
dressman, which costs about €1,000, is not exactly inexpensive, but it
works very economically. The operating costs amount to only five cents
per shirt. By comparison, it costs about €2 at the cleaners — not
including the cost of getting there.
