How to Fold a Dress Shirt (Wrinkle-Free Travel and Storage)

Button the collar button and at least the third button down the placket. Buttoning is what holds the shirt together through the fold and keeps the front placket lying straight. Skip this and the front gapes open while you're trying to line up the sides, and you'll end up with a fold that bulges through the middle.

If the shirt came out of the dryer or hamper, give it a quick steam or shake out the worst of the wrinkles before you start. A folded wrinkle stays a wrinkle.

Flip the shirt over so the back faces up and the buttons are pressed against the surface. A bed, a dresser top, or a folding board all work - just give yourself a flat area wider than the shoulders.

Run your hands across the shoulders, back, and tail. Press out every wrinkle now. Any crease left in the fabric here ends up baked into the finished fold, and once you start folding you can't get back at the back of the shirt without starting over.

Grab one side of the shirt at the shoulder seam and fold it inward, lining the side seam up roughly with the center of the back. Keep the fabric flat against the table as you fold - lifting it bunches the back panel up underneath.

The fold should land about a third of the way across the shirt. The sleeve will end up sticking out at an angle off the new vertical edge - that's normal. You'll deal with it in the next step.

Take the sleeve you just folded across and bring the cuff back down so the sleeve runs parallel to the side of the shirt. The cuff should sit near the shirt tail, pointing down.

This is the move that makes the factory fold work. It tucks the sleeve inside the silhouette of the fold instead of letting it bunch up on top, which is what gives the finished shirt that flat, rectangular profile.

Do the exact same fold on the opposite side. Bring the shoulder seam in toward the center, then fold the sleeve back down along the new edge. Use the first side as a mirror - the two sides should look identical when you're done.

You end up with a long rectangle the width of the back panel, with both sleeves tucked along the sides and the collar at the top. This is the foundation of the fold; the next two steps just package it.

Take the shirt tail and fold it up about a third of the way toward the collar. Then fold up again so the bottom hem meets just below the collar. Two folds keep the finished package shorter than a single fold and stop the shirt from creasing right across the chest.

Press each fold flat as you go. The flatter the bottom, the flatter the finished bundle, and the easier it is to stack or slide into a packing cube.

Flip the whole bundle over. The collar and front placket should be facing up, looking just like a shirt fresh out of the package. Press your hands across the top to settle the fold.

You have a tight, flat rectangle ready for a suitcase, a drawer, or a packing cube. For travel, slide the folded shirt into a packing cube or lay it flat across the bottom of the suitcase. For a closet drawer, stand the fold on its edge so the collar faces up - that way you can see every shirt at a glance instead of digging through a stack.