Tips on How to Travel With a Suit Like a Gent
Do you travel frequently for business? Then we guess the least favorite part of your trips is – packing. Vacuum packing can’t guarantee your clothes will always stay wrinkle-free. If you get familiar with our how to travel with a suit tips, you will have your outfit crisp wherever you are going.
Wear It!
When going on a quick trip, you want to bring essentials only. There is almost no reason to invest a lot of effort and time in packing for such a short period.
You can wear your suit when flying! If your flight won’t last more than a few hours, get on that plane in a suit! Traveling to cold climates? Bring a jacket and ask a flight attendant to hang it up for you.
Carry It En Route
For the ones who find traveling in a suit uncomfortable, carrying it may be a great alternative. This especially makes sense for short trips by plane, car, bus, or train.
Owning a bespoke hanger will make carrying your suit look classy. Optionally, you can take a hanging bag with you as well, but a good hanger is a must!
Carrying your suit will take away worrying about your luggage getting misplaced or lost. Besides, passengers sitting next to you would be impressed by your classy suit and your hanger. Does this give you James Bond vibes already?
Note to self: be careful about dirty seats or spilling something on your suit.
Even if you are bringing a travel bag or a suitcase on a trip, you can still carry your suit separately to prevent other pieces of clothing, such as socks and towels from wrinkling it.
Buy a Portable Steamer
One of the handiest accessories for world travelers, a portable steamer will eliminate eventual wrinkles. It is simpler than wearing iron and very affordable.
Just pour some water into it, plug it in, and wait for the water to heat up. It will take no more than 10 minutes to get your clothes fixed at worst.
If you still don’t want to buy a steamer, you should know some hotels provide streaming services or you can rent one.
Arrange Items Inside Your Luggage
Even if you decide to pack up your suit in a suitcase, we have a few tricks on how to arrange small items and preserve your clothing as well as possible.
Use shoe inserts to keep the structure of your footwear inside the luggage, and keep them in shoe bags if you have some. The same applies to watches and neckties – keep them in separate cases. When it comes to pocket squares, cummerbunds, studs, and other small items, place them in sealed bags.
When it comes to pants, shirts, and jackets, and anything you would usually bundle up – pack them tightly. Then, place those smaller objects in-between to prevent them from shifting around.
Folding Lessons
Some people prefer smaller suitcases. Raise your hand if you agree. In this case, you want to fold like a pro.
You should fold your pants as if you would put them on a hanger. Follow the crease in the front, set the pants down flat, grab the hems and bend upwards, to the waist. Then, fold them in half twice more.
Suit jackets are trickier to fold than pants, but you can learn this after some trial and error. Place the jacket on a flat surface with its face down. Then, take one sleeve and pull it behind the back. Repeat the same with the opposite sleeve. Pull the shoulders to the back to fold the suit jacket in half. Finally, roll it up starting from the top.
Shirts may only seem like a pain the rear. Actually, folding a shirt is very similar to folding a jacket. Button your shirt, bring its sleeves back so one is on top of another. Fold the sides so you get even surface and fold the whole shirt once or twice.
Bonus Tips
- Selects suits made of flannel, tweed, and wool when traveling. Heavier fabrics wrinkle less than their lightweight counterparts (linen, chambray, and seersucker).
- Hard bags will prevent wrinkling more than soft ones.
- Attentive folding is the key to keeping your suit crisp when taking longer trips.
Summary
Whether you are attending a business conference, friend’s wedding, or flying for a job interview – you will need to look sleek. With our tips on how to travel with a suit, you won’t have a hard time reaching the desired destination – across the country, on another continent, or the other side of the world.
