PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — When online voters nixed the clothes iron token from Hasbro’s Monopoly game, the appliance was held up as passe, as something your grandmother once used to ease the wrinkles out of linens and handkerchiefs.
“Despite being an integral part of life when the token was added to the game in the 1930s, the iron has fallen out of favor with today’s fans,” the Rhode Island-based company said in announcing its replacement — with a cat.
But even with the rise of wrinkle-free fabrics, the iron, it seems, is holding its own.
While U.S. iron sales declined in volume 1 percent last year, they were up nearly 3 percent overall from 2007 to 2012, according to the market research group Euromonitor International. Over the same period, steam generator irons — which make more steam than traditional ones, speeding up the process — experienced what the firm called “enormous growth.” Sales were $368 million last year.
Kim Kalunian irons nearly everything: sweaters, dresses, pants, even jeans. The 23-year-old digital producer at WPRO Radio in East Providence inherited her distaste for wrinkles from her mother, whom she describes as a “fierce ironer.” She finds the chore — and the hiss of the steam — therapeutic.
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The clothing iron doesn’t need Monopoly’s lousy endorsement
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