Is it possible to apply cloth physics to a complex mesh or curved object?

I’ve been experimenting with cloth in Blender and have successfully simulated cloth by applying cloth physics to a plane which I subdivided 7 times. However, I tried to apply cloth physics to a 3D model of a face I have made, and Blender could not bake a single frame of the animation. Is there any reason for this? Can you only apply cloth physics to flat objects in Blender?