“Don’t look yet,” the stylist said, busying himself with something near the model’s elbow. “I’m doing the ice cube thing.” I’d been nestled into the corner of an oversized chair in a photo studio in Chelsea taking notes like I was supposed to. Ostensibly there to observe and report on everything that went into shooting a fashion campaign for a major designer label, editors had instructed me to fly completely under the radar—to watch, take notes, learn about how the sausage was made but never touch the meats of the operation. So far, I’d been mostly good; restraining the journalist-fascocrat in me from asking hundreds of questions had proven far more difficult than ignoring whatever lunacy was going down center stage.
Now curiosity had the better of me. The model —tall, blond, an alien goddess who walked like she hurt everywhere but looked like she hadn’t tried at all— hovered silently in front of the photographer wearing an unstylish silk blouse that was undoubtedly $800. Stylist stalked back over, clutching…an ice cube?
He dragged it rapidly along certain points on her blouse: beneath the arms where side-seams wrinkled, across the button placket, along the collarbone. “What are you doing?” I demanded, thoroughly surrendering any pretense of journalistic neutrality in favor of unabashed fashion gossip mongering. The stylist looked up at me unsurprised; he seemed almost excited that I’d caught him in the act. “Ice cube trick,” he said, tossing the now melted cube into the nearest trashcan. “It firms up the fibers so they shrink like half a size and everything fits better against the body for the next thirty minutes or so.
Long enough to snap your shots.” The photographer and creative director both nodded sagely as if this were common knowledge I was only now learning.
The model meanwhile looked bored and perfect, clearly accustomed to her hem being zapped with ice backstage at fashion shows since before I was born. I had no idea what the hell was going on. “We do it on anything silk or natural fiber,” the stylist continued. “Cotton shirts, linen pants, some kinds of wool. Never synthetics though.
Doesn’t work, and can actually look weird.” I made note of it. Quickest way to look like you spent hours getting ready but only took five minutes? Rub your clothes with ice first.
I watched him use the ice trick on three more garments that day: a cotton button-down that had been picking up wrinkles from standing under the studio lights, a linen blazer whose collar refused to sit flat against her neck, and a silk dress whose side seams were slowly bubbling upwards. All three items looked marginally better afterward; the ice trick wasn’t magic, but it acted like a subtle kind of eraser for small clothing sins. “How long has everyone been doing this?” I asked the stylist later, once we were alone with coffee and pizza. “Forever,” he shrugged. “Everyone knows about it. I learned it from my mentor fifteen years ago.
She learned it from someone in the 80s. Another stylist, probably.” I texted my friend Emma, who had joyfully embraced more experimental trends than any other person I knew: Have you ever heard of using an ice cube on clothes to make them look better? Like… to get fake icebergs and penguins out of them?
No, like if your clothes fit you weird in photos but are totally fine in real life? Rubbing an ice cube along seams and collars so they’re just tight enough to look perfect. Everyone I know in fashion besides me knows this trick.
First I’ve heard of it. Try it and report back. I want DETAILS.
Alone in my apartment hours later, I stared into my mirror skeptically clutching an ice cube over my own blouse. About to Will Ferrell myself into professional ruin by rubbing ice all over my clothes out of some nerd ambition? Part of me wanted to run away screaming.
Another scrawled notes in my phone, ready to share this magical clothing knowledge with the world. But first, science. I dashed the ice along the seams of my blouse self-consciously, mimicking how the stylist had earlier that day; I didn’t want to soak the fabric with melting water, just chill it quickly.
I ran it down one side of my collar and left the other untouched, because journalists accept nothing less than a controlled experiment. My eyes widened as soon as I stepped away. The difference was undeniable.
The ice-cubed side of my shirt hung straighter against my shoulder, looked noticeably smoother against my skin. Untreated side of my collar nodded mockingly up and down every time I moved my head. It wasn’t a miraculous transformation—and all things considered, running ice along your clothes still sounds insane—but it was enough to tell.
Enough to cross the gap between ‘put-together’ and ‘well put-together.’ That half-inch your shirt tail hangs over your pants supposed to hang. The kind of details that separate casually looking at a photo from stopping and taking notice. Fuelled by triumph, I set about hacking my entire wardrobe with ice.
Zach called it “the stupidest kitchen science experiment we’ve ever done.” I, stubborn magpie that I am, called it self-educating on a cool new trick. ***Results:*** Cotton button-downs: Helped. Especially with collars and cuffs. How long before things return to normal? : About half an hour, give or take.
Linen dress: Helped tremendously along problem areas with puckering seams. Did nothing for wrinkles elsewhere (it’s linen, it happens—don’t fight the fabric). half hour. Silk tank top: Wow. helped across the board.
Made the fabric itself look smoother too, not just hung shirts and blouses straighter. How long did the results last? : Thirty minutes, tops. Dry ice might work indefinitely, but that’s definitely cheating.
Wool blend blazer: Sort of helped. Did more for the collar and chest than sleeves. Mood noted: works better for lighter weight wool that’s 100% wool than heavier blends.
Polyester-blend blouse: Did nothing. Water beaded and rolled right off, fabric remained perfectly unharmed. My stylist was right about synthetics.
Cashmere sweater: Marginal improvement on how nicely the neck and cuffs sat, but I was paranoid about getting water damage and didn’t ice as heavily. Also, cold should never touch cashmere if at all possible. I looked decidedly put-together as I rushed out the door for my next big meeting, an information-packed breakfast with a designer who could be my brand’s next big collaboration.
I pulled out my phone to triple check the time on my way out the door. Because why not take every variable into consideration? It worked.
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My shirts looked crisper than ever. By the time I arrived at work, my white silk button-down had begun to relax back into its natural, unstuck state but for that thirty minute walk across town, my clothes looked hotel-photo session crisp. What’s more, I felt fancier wearing them.
Aggressively projecting confidence is something I dearly practice, but even I noticed a subtle change in how I carried myself that day. If my outfit looked a little sharper in my own mind subconsciously, it might have tricked me into believing it too. I decided it was time to take my little experiment public. “How did you not know about this?” My stylist-friend Tyler scoffed when I told him. “Every stylist and their mama knows about the ice cube thing.” “I’ve been doing that since I was on set for my first campaign,” said Simone, my friend whose been styling for the last three decades. “Back then we used to use whatever was cold—chipotles cans, whiskey bottles, even just slices of frozen vegetables.
You learn to make do.” “The freeze,” corrected Marcus, who styles looks for luxury brand campaigns. “It’s what we call it. Shoots with tons of looks, like lookbooks or street style heavy fashion weeks, we always have a stash of ice in the fridge. Nothing irons faster than freezing denim.” Yet polled fashion editors, the reaction was almost universally “huh”.
Literally everyone I knew in styling or photography knew about this. Heck, my hairstylist knows about this. As every editor I mentioned it to furrowed their brow in confusion I began to realize something astonishing: no one outside of the styling world knew about this. “Ice what?” said Clara, who edits at another major publication.
Sure, stylists, photographers, and designers all worked in close quarters, but how had something so basic been contained to a single branch of the industry? Were fashion editors really that incompetent at our jobs that we hadn’t noticed one of the fundamental tricks of the styling trade? It seemed ridiculous.
It turned out there was a reason for it: Here’s what happens: when exposed to cold, fibers in natural materials like cotton, silk, and wool contract just slightly. Adding moisture encourages this effect, which is why rubbing a cold, wet ice cube in lieu of a dry one works better. The fibers tighten up momentarily, causing pants to hang straighter and collars to lie flatter.
The effect wears off after twenty minutes or so as the fibers return to room temperature, but that’s long enough for you to finish getting ready or shoot a few fashion photos. “It’s the same reason people roll their shower curtains in ice water when they’re creased,” said Dr. Elaine Chen, textile scientist and casual polymath. “Appliances like irons and steamers heat up fabric fibers, which relaxes them and causes the material to loosen and ‘droop’. Cooling a fabric down pulls the fibers tight, so it appears more rigid.” She followed up with a wonderfully detailed explainer on how different materials are affected by temperature changes that I won’t bore you with here.
While natural fabrics were positively affected by our cubes, most synthetic materials reacted poorly. Synthetic fabrics like polyester and nylon are made to be insulative and water resistant, so my hypothesis about the ice trick ruining synthetics was spot on. Natural fabrics reacted because they were affected by the temperature change, while synthetics didn’t.
A quick poll of family and friends revealed no one in non-fashion-related industries had heard of this tip, and with good reason: who goes around rubbing their clothes with ice cubes? No one. And yet here we were.
When I first heard about this trick, I remember thinking how great it would feel if everyone knew about it. Imagine a world where everyone looked halfway decent in their portraits because they ran a bottle of ice water down their shirt before getting photographed. Now I wondered if knowing this trick would make me the weirdo.
After talking to enough professionals to confirm the ice cube technique was near-universally known in the styling world, I began systematically asking any fashion professional I knew for their most useful insider secrets. What were they tricks of the trade that everyone else was somehow missing? Some were shocking, some were obvious—but every response filled out a clearer picture of what I came to think of as “The Fashion Matrix”: They shared a common theme: they worked, they were easy, you didn’t need fancy tools or products to do them.
And for some reason nobody outside the industries who knew these tricks blogs about them. “There’s sort of an ethos against that kind of knowledge in fashion,” said Dr. Mira Williams, fashion historian and author of Evolving Elegance: Thirty Years of Fashion. “People get really secretive about their techniques because, well—it’s how they make their living. But the bigger reason nobody talks about these tricks is that fashion doesn’t prioritize them.
Stylists know these things because they have to; it’s a tool of the trade. But style essays and career advise columns and even academic studies focus more on the aspirational parts of fashion.” I could see her point: how many how-to articles had I written in my career that detailed how to search for the perfect white t-shirt? Plenty.
But how many touched on how to make said white t-shirt look less like you rummaged for it in your boyfriend’s closet and more crisp, tailored, and by extension, expensive? Popular style guides and stories vastly preferred telling you how to navigate the iceberg-level tricky fashion buying process than what to do once you already bought the clothes. There was almost no useful, practical advice on keeping your clothes looking their best without spending money on fancy products or services.
The larger fashion publishing world had completely neglected a massive swath of useful tricks and tips, delegating them to custodial staff and overlooked stagehands. To put it plainly: It was full of secrets. “Trivia like that used to be commonly known by everyone who worked in clothes,” Dr. Williams continued. “Buyers knew it, checkers knew it, designers knew it.
The industry wasn’t as siloed back then.” She shook her head. “I hate that we’ve reached a point where people think knowing how to make your clothes look good with ice and hot water is a ‘secret technique’ that will instantly win you followers.” As soon as she hung up I immediately ordered a silveryLogo ice cube tray off Amazon.
I would know. Looking good in clothes doesn’t have to be inaccessible; there are literally thousands of tricks and tips every fashion professional knows how to do, but will never write about.
Here at THECLUSIVE we believe in democratizing fashion know-how so everyone can look like they spend more time in clothes than we actually do. So consider this the first of many insider tricks coming to a newsletter near you. I put the technique to the test that weekend at Fashion Week, where looking like you tried at all can win you press passes and lifelong friendships.
Sticking to silk-blend shirts and linen blazers that I knew would flyephemerally shirt as soon as they left the plastic hangars they came in, I ran ice across all my base clothes before joining the crowd at shows that day. Lo and behold, it worked once again. Shirts looked crisper than ever.
I even managed to get stopped by a street style photographer—who actually took our picture this time, rather than tolerating my lengthy monologues about footwear trends—and mentally thanked that_nameless stylist months earlier. “How do you always look so put together?” my favoritestfriendasked me later that day, eyeing my collar suspiciously. “I do?” I laughed. For a beat I considered lying, keeping this new circle of stylist tweed entirely to myself. There was a strange romance in knowing a secret so fundamental to fashion nobody else knew it.
But then I thought about how many more friends I could turn into obsessively perfectionist ice-cube hoarders. “You’ll never believe how I keep my clothes looking so nice,” I said, leaning in. “Let me let you in on a secret…”
