How many times can you wear a suit before cleaning it?

For a suit worn in air-conditioning with a short walk at either end, every three to four wears is realistic. For a suit worn outdoors, or worn to anything where you were standing in the heat, treat it as every two to three. The trigger is perspiration reaching the jacket, not the calendar — trousers, which sit closer to the body and take the crease, generally need it roughly twice as often as the jacket.

The cleaning itself is gentle. The pressing is what wears a suit, which is why repeated cleaning flattens the lapel roll and eventually glazes the fabric at the elbows and seat. That is an argument for pressing by hand and for not cleaning on a schedule you have not thought about — not an argument for leaving perspiration in the wool, which does far more damage than a clean does.

Air the suit for a full day before it goes back in the wardrobe, on a broad hanger that supports the shoulders. Brush it down the grain of the cloth. In Bangkok humidity, do not put it straight into a sealed garment bag — trapped moisture is how a suit acquires the smell people mistake for 'needs cleaning' when it actually needs airing. Rotating two suits roughly doubles the life of both.

You can, and plenty of people do because trousers soil faster. The caveat is that wool changes colour very slightly each time it is cleaned, so cleaning trousers repeatedly without the jacket will eventually leave a visible mismatch in daylight. Cleaning them together every second or third time keeps the pair in step.

Every wear, without exception — it is the shirt that is absorbing most of what would otherwise reach the jacket. A shirt is 150 THB dry cleaned or a fraction of that through wash-and-fold, and using it as the barrier is the cheapest way to reduce how often the suit needs anything at all.