Smoke from the Past

Ever wondered how clothes were pressed back in the old days in the Philippines? On old photos you would see ladies and gentlemen with clothes neatly pressed. There was no electricity back then so in order to get the clothes pressed and in order to impress, a charcoal powered flat iron was invented. This device is called...................

Platsa de Uling

This is an antique flat iron that was passed down from my great grandmother. I feel so blessed to have this piece of heritage passed down to us. I would treasure this heirloom and pass on to the next generation as grandmother has done.

If you would closely look you would see a letter "V" engraved on the handle. This is the initial of my grandmother which stands for "Visitacion". She often engraves her initial on her belongings which reminds us of her every time we use one of her things. She was kind and very resourceful as far as I can remember. My mother used to tell me stories from her youth when times were hard and money was hard to get by. My grandmother always finds was to make sure everything is covered. No new clothes, she makes them, not enough food she plants them which tells me what an amazing woman she was.

First time we used this iron which I still clearly recall. There was a storm and we had no electricity for a week already. It was my grade school graduation and my clothes needed to be pressed. My mother took out this device and fired up some charcoals and started to press my clothes. I was amazed to see how it worked and I went up that stage proud with my neatly pressed clothes.

Let me show you how this device works. You would need to unlock it first and have it opened.

Next you would fire up some charcoals enough to fill the Plantsa and make sure the charcoals are burning red.

One by one you would need to fill up the device just enough to cover the whole space.

Once filled up you would need to close it and turn the lock to keep the charcoals in and prevent the ashes from flying around.

Another procedure which my aunt told me. You would need to use a banana leaf and place the Plantsa on it. This would allow a smooth press as you work on your clothes.

Once that is all done. You have a fired up device and you could proceed with your ironing of your clothes. My aunt told me that my grandmother used to iron their clothes on their wooden floor with a cloth placed on top of it. Back then they did not have ironing boards and the work was done on the floor.

They also used a bowl of water and a piece of cloth to dampen the clothes that you would be pressing. This allows for the crumples to be easily ironed out. These days they use a water sprayer and some iron has steam that dampens the clothes.

Then you proceed with the ironing as usual. My wife does the ironing as I am not good at it sometimes I leave some crumples on the clothes. I try so hard most of the time but let me just leave it to the expert.

The hand model by the way is my son's as he wanted to be part of the shoot to feature this device. Like me he was also fascinated how things worked back then.

A simple procedure but means a lot to us using the Plantsa de Uling. I hope you enjoyed this part of our heritage and culture. Thank you for joining us again.

I see the smoke for the Plantsa as Steem and we will all get there soon. Cheers Steemians!

Please vote @steemgigs as witness and help support @surpassinggoogle

Also thanks to @bayanihan where the impossible becomes possible thru unity.

Taken with Lumix GX85 and Sigma 50mm 1.4