care and feeding of silk?

[thanate]

Question for those of you who work with dupioni-- do you treat it as dry clean only, or has it held up to washing? I am wondering if I should fight my habit of serging and machine washing/drying everything that comes into the house (ok, there are some other exceptions) for fear of ruining the lovely stuff, rather than washing it now for fear of it shrinking later on due to potential hand washing.

Opinions?

Comments

[stanci.livejournal.com]

Not that this hasn't already been answered to death - but when I've washed dupioni, the fabric's changed from the shiny surface to a more matte, dull surface.
I don't know that silk is in danger of shrinking - wool yes (and I have lined wool dress pants to prove it. grrr), but I don't think silk will.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

From what I've gathered, some silks shrink and others don't mainly based on the weave, and dupioni and raw silk are the ones that are most prone to it.

Of course, the internet also tells me that I should only use either steam or a dry iron to get wrinkles out, so I thought asking real people sounded like a better bet. So, thanks! :)