You should be able to iron pleated skirts but you must take care not to shine the fabric, follow these tips and it should be easy.
Pleats come in various kinds and on a number of fabrics. Permanently pleated skirts will be heat set using a good proportion of a thermoplastic fibre such as polyester, which makes them dangerous to iron at a hot temperature. Wool or viscose skirts might shine badly when ironed and it may be best to cover the fabric with a damp cloth. Whatever your case follow the basic instructions below and adjust your technique to take into account the special requirements of your particular skirt.
Start any pleated skirt by placing it on the board with your ironing hand on the waist band and the other hand looking to control the pleats at the bottom of the skirt. If you only have a few pleats around the skirt then complete the flat areas first then come back to the pleats, but do them in the same way as if you had lot of pleats.
Hold one pleat in place at the bottom of the skirt, making sure that all material at the bottom is square and that the flap is facing you. Pull the waist band to make the whole pleat straight. Once you're happy hold the next closest pleat in place and straighten it too. Keep holding the pleats at the bottom or place a pin in the first one holding it exactly in place and pinning it to the board to hold it.
Move along the skirt adding to the pleats you're holding, tugging at the waistband and smoothing out the pleats with your ironing hand.
Keep adding pleats until the ones you're holding are wider than the iron. Here we're holding 5 pleats in place.
Put the iron on so that its nose is just to the right of the first pleat you held in. Do not overlap any pleats you aren't holding in as this will iron them out and it will be more difficult to get them back in. Guide the iron straight down the skirt towards your fingers, DO NOT MOVE THE IRON SIDEWAYS.
