Should I Roll Or Fold My Underwear? - MEL Magazine

Two years ago, a man who shall remain nameless, asked a community of other men what to do about his boxers. “Doing laundry and I’m at the part of folding my boxers & briefs,” he wrote. “I’m curious, how do you all fold them? Do you make them into perfect little squares, or do you just kinda throw them in the dresser?”

For me, a lazy person, it’s very much been the latter. Until recently, I couldn’t possibly be bothered to fold something that never saw the light of day. But lately, as my underwear/sock drawer has been completely overrun by cotton material, threatening to explode like a textile Pompeii, I’ve begun to rethink that stance. 

And so, if only for organizational purposes, I reached out to a variety of experts to help me better fit my drawers in, well, my drawers. 

A Former Underwear Model

Jamie has been out of the modeling game for some time now, but he’s still very enthusiastic about his underwear. “I treat them like my T-shirts,” he tells me. “I still spend a lot of time in my briefs so I don’t want them to look wrinkled.” As for his preferred technique, he once watched a woman on-set fold the underwear he was gonna model in half and roll them up like Play-Doh. “I do the same now,” he says. “It saves room in my drawer, and I can see the colors so I can match them with my clothes if I want to.”

The Men of Reddit

Reddit is a bit all over the place on this one. Some men there, like yours truly, still stuff them into drawers; others advocate for the fold-and-roll method Jamie swears by. But most, it seems, prefer to fold their underwear sans roll. “Fold in half first vertically, like butterfly wings,” one of them writes. “And then again horizontally. Nice even squares.”

Comment from discussion Danibear285’s comment from discussion "How do you fold your boxers/boxer briefs?".

The Professional Organizer

YouTuber Judi the Organizer has tips on everything from how to harmonize your refrigerator to your closet to your dresser drawers. Naturally, she also has a great strategy for organizing your boxers, which typically take up the most space in your aforementioned dresser drawer. I could explain it for you, but you’re much better off just watching her do it: 

My Dad

For all things tidy, there’s really only one person who I trust — my dad. His closet is his temple. His shirts are arranged by color. His ties are lined up by how often he wears them. Even his shoes are neatly kept in boxes based on the frequency in which they’re used. In terms of his boxer briefs, he tells me, “I fold them in half — first vertically, then horizontally — and file them into my dresser the same way I do my T-shirts. I never put them on top of each other so I can always see the color.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some underwear to fold. 

Andrew Fiouzi

Andrew Fiouzi is a staff writer at MEL.

Recommended Reading

• Style: Should You Be Moisturizing Your Butthole?
• Style: The Ultimate Male Slut Guide to Getting Dressed This Summer
• Style: An Oral History of Soap Shoes, the Only Sneaker to Ever Come with a Warning Label
• Style: The Very Modern Men Who Still Wear Man Thongs Like Tommy Lee