Garment Care
Treating your pieces carefully is essential, especially as we use delicate materials like tulle, silk and 24k gold-plated hardware. Washing and storing with care will not only keep your precious pieces looking their best but also extend their life span.
All Studio Pia garments are hand wash only. Machine washing, even at a low temperature in a garment bag, can cause snags to the delicate fabrics, damage underwires and stretch elastics.
How to Wash Your Garments
Due to the dye requirements for natural fibres like silk, dark and bright colours may transfer to light-colour garments/products or bleed during the first few washes. Washing and allowing dark and bright colours to fully dry before use can help minimise contact transfer and we recommend washing your items separately to avoid any transfer.
To start, select a mild hand wash detergent formulated for lingerie, silks and delicate items. Add your chosen detergent to a basin or sink with enough lukewarm water to fully submerge the garment, then place your item to soak for a few minutes before gently rubbing clean. A little extra detergent can be used to help rub out any marks.
If the detergent is a rinse-off formula, after soaking, rinse your garment under the tap with lukewarm water until it no longer feels soapy before gently squeezing out excess water. For no-rinse formulas, remove your garment from the water and gently squeeze the excess water.
Do not wring or twist silk, as this can damage the fibres. Folding the garment in half and squeezing should remove most of the water.
After removing the excess water, use an old towel to gently press out any remaining moisture.
To dry, lay your garments flat, especially items with underwires and moulded cups, to ensure they retain their shape. Simply lie them out on an old dry towel or use a drying rack with flat sections. While drying, keep your garments out of direct sunlight, away from radiators, and never tumble dry your garments, as the heat and friction can damage the elastics and delicate materials, shortening the lifespan of your garment.
After the first wash and with repeated washing, silk may lose a little of its lustre. This is perfectly normal. You can dry clean instead of washing if you wish to retain as much shine as possible.
If your silk garments become creased during drying, you can gently iron them using the lowest setting while the item is still damp. We recommend turning the garment inside out while ironing. Additionally, you can place a piece of cloth, pillowcase or hand towel on top of the garment to lessen the heat's intensity.
Do not drag the iron across the fabric. Instead, gently press downward through the press cloth, and lift the iron to allow the area to cool briefly before repeating the pressing motion. Do not press the iron to the fabric for a long time, as extended exposure to heat may damage the garment.
Do not iron embroideries, especially metallic embroideries, as they can be damaged by heat.
Where possible, select steaming over ironing. A hand-held steamer on the lowest setting will help remove creases, especially in awkward-to-iron areas. Ensure you keep the steamer at the recommended distance from the garment and only apply steam to one place for a short time to avoid burning the silk or satin. Alternatively, items can be hung in the bathroom while you shower, allowing the humidity to ease out any creases.
How to Store Your Garments
How you store your lingerie is a personal choice, whether in a drawer, chest, or the luxe packaging your garment arrived in, but below are some tips you can implement to help keep your precious garments safe.
Laying items flat with the clasps done up is the best choice for longevity and keeping them safe from snags and tears. If you are short on space, separate moulded and non-moulded bras and lay the moulded bras flat, stacked neatly one in front of the other. Do not fold moulded cup bras in half or push one cup inside the other, as this warps the cups shape and damages the moulding over time.
Non-moulded cups with underwire can be folded in half for storage if you are low on space. However, it is best to lay wired styled flat and stack them like the moulded cup bras where possible to help them retain their shape.
Non-wired bras and bottoms can be folded. Drawer dividers and organising garments by type (bras, bottoms etc.) are a great way to keep your collection organised and give the garments the space they need.
Bodysuits, basques and robes should be hung wherever possible using a padded hanger. Avoid using hangers with clips, which can leave impressions on delicate fabrics and potentially cause damage. Non-moulded cup bodysuits with underwires can be folded in half lengthways with the back claps tucked in for storage, but ideally, they should be laid flat. Do not fold moulded cup bodysuits to avoid warpping the cups.
For especially delicate items, individual garment bags can be used for storage to help avoid snags and tears.
Keep your garments out of direct sunlight, away from radiators and high heat.
Additional Care Tips
Some natural imperfections may be found in the weave of the silk due to the nature of the material, as well as some slight colour variation due to the small-batch dye process used. This is entirely normal.
Avoid spraying perfumes directly onto silk, as the alcohol found in perfume formulas can cause damage to the silk.
When travelling, we recommend storing your garments in individual garment bags inside your suitcase with the fastenings done up to keep them safe from friction, snags and tears.
