I adore pleats, only they can be such a nuisance to keep crisp. My husband is an excellent ironer –– one of the many skills his mother armed him with when he went off to live in Italy at 21 –– but who has the time to press twenty pleats? So I’ll keep admiring accordion skirts and blouses with pleated cuffs in shop windows and magazines, until such day as I decide a dress is so exquisite, that I simply have to pick up an iron myself.