It is the heat from the steam, and not the iron, that softens the fabric fibers.
You could use a fabric steamer if it put out enough steam, but those I have seen don't produce quite enough. Not much more than is needed to relax some wrinkles.
This is the sort of steam I'm talking about.
To illustrate I did up a quick sample.
First I pressed in an apron taper. This is a real overkill amount of taper.
Then I folded the facing. You can see that the fold lays sort of flat but the Tartan is skewed.
So I pinned the Tartan pattern aligned and this puckers the fabric.
Then shots of steam to soften the fibers - then light pressure from the iron sole plate - and the fabric lays right down with the Tartan aligned.
Here is the apron facing of the kilt I am currently working on. This facing is 4 inches deep to act as a reinforcment for the kilt pin. So it had a lot of skew before steaming. I put the yellow headed pinson to show the facing inner fold.
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