Gowns and evening dresses are essential for nights out, but what do you do when the night is over and it’s time to put your dress away? How can you make sure it’ll be safe until the next time you head out? Prevention is the key to protecting your dresses. Here’s what you need to do to make sure your dresses last longer than one night out.

Fitting

One of the first things that you can do to make sure that you don’t have a fashion emergency while you’re having the time of your life is to make sure that your dress fits you. Wearing a gown that’s too long, too loose or too tight is just asking for disaster. You can trip on long gowns and rip or tear hems. Loose dresses can get caught on things and get ripped or punctured. Anything too tight can pop seams or buttons. Not only will having a perfectly-fitted dress help protect it from getting needlessly damaged, but you’ll also be so much more comfortable and prepared to enjoy your night out.

Cleaning

Depending on your dress, you can carefully wash it yourself in your washing machine, or you can send it to the best dry cleaners in town. It’s up to you to decide who can best care for your dress. Anything with delicate fabric or intricate embellishments and designs (or anything with sentimental value like a wedding dress) might be better in the hands of a professional. If you decide to wash your dresses yourself, it’s always a good idea to know what kind of fabric your dress is made of so you know what settings to wash them on. Hot water can make dyes run, and cold water can make clothes shrink, and strong washing cycles can ruin fabric. It’s generally safe to wash on delicate settings with lukewarm water. To be extra careful, you can turn your dress inside out and place it inside a laundry bag to keep it from getting too banged up in the wash.

Storage

It seems obvious that after your dress has gone through the wash or is back from the dry cleaners that you’d stick it in your closet until your next event. But if you want your dress to be ready for the next time you need it, there are a few things you need to do to keep it at its best. First, if you’re going to hang it in a closet, make sure you use a cloth dust cover to keep it from getting dingy while in the closet, especially for lighter colored dresses. Dust can gather at the shoulders, causing gray stains you might not have time to clean for an impromptu date. Avoid plastic dust covers because they can trap humidity around the dress, allowing for mold to grow.

While most dresses can handle being put on hangers for a while, some might need to be folded or put away in boxes. Dresses that are heavy and can stretch are examples of what should be folded. But don’t think that you can fold them and forget about them. If you fold a silk dress, you need to bring it out every month or so and fold it in a different way to prevent permanent creases in the fabric. More delicate dresses can be folded carefully and placed into boxes, but it’s important make sure that these boxes are acid free, so it doesn’t slowly stain your dress while packed away.

Placement

Whether you hang, fold or box your dress or gown away, it’s still important to think about where you finally put them. You want to make sure that they’re kept out of direct light and away from humidity and heat. Any of these three can have dire effects on any gown. They can cause colors to fade, mold to grow and fabric to deteriorate, especially if kept away for a long time.  The best place to put them is in a cool, dry place that has good airflow. You also want to keep your dresses in places that are bug free. Creepy crawlies can sometimes eat through certain fabrics, or can cause stains.

In the end, preserving a dress isn’t just about being practical. For example, if you’re putting a wedding gown away for future generations to use, then it’s about preserving memories. But remember that if you’re storing something as precious as a wedding gown, you might want to have a professional take care of preserving it for you. For regular dresses, you can take the necessary precautions to prevent a wardrobe crisis of potential damage with a little care and preparation.