Packing for any trip can be a gigantic pain in itself, but when you need to look particularly put together at your destination, it’s a special kind of struggle. Whether that destination is a wedding or a work meeting, avoiding wrinkles in your shirt, suit, or tie boils down the right packing equipment (or fully committing to wearing your fancy clothes on the plane). Where can you find the wrinkle-eradicating packing tools you never knew you needed until you found them? The internet, of course. That’s where you can find all kinds of useful products that are just weird enough to be called “packing hacks.” Here are seven we stand behind.
Hangers Small Enough to Take on the Road
Sure, weighing down your carry-on with a bunch of extra hangers may sound crazy, but you’ll be glad you did when you realize the five that come standard in your hotel room closet—or the zero that come in your AirBnb—aren’t enough. These hand-strength-training-lookin’ hangers weigh next to nothing, but are sturdy enough to hold a heavy suit, and they fold up nicely to fit within small pockets.
A Tougher Garment Bag
Garment bags are becoming something of an endangered species on airplanes, with overhead bin space at a premium after years of checked baggage gouging. That said, for shorter trips where you need a suit and aren’t already at luggage capacity, something a cut above the cheap garment bag your suit came in is a must. This soft nylon number has a leather trim handle that makes it easy to tote on its own.
Some Dress Shirt Armor
Sure, go ahead and laugh all you want at this dress shirt and tie luggage organizer, which sort of looks sort of like a Happy Meal and sort of like your dress shirt got the Han-Solo-in-carbonite treatment. Whether you’re toting a $780 Gucci oxford or $30 Uniqlo button down, you’re going to need all the wrinkle protection you can get if you’re rolling around with your button-downs folded in your carry-on luggage.
Neckwear Protection
Rolling up your ties and wedging them in the heel of your dress shoes is fine for maybe the first ten times in life that you travel with a tie or two. But eventually, you’re going to require a monogrammed tie roll.
A Weekender That Can Hold a Suit
At first glance this looks like a run-of-the-mill handsome and durable duffel. But it’s actually an advanced suit-carrying system. The lining of the bag itself can comfortably fit a size 46 suit and a pair of dress shoes. Or, looked at another way, it essentially turns your garment bag into a very functional bindle in which you can stuff your other clothes. Bonus: it’s water repellent.
The Hands-Free Suit Solution
The toughest part of rolling around with a suit bag is that it doesn’t weigh much, but monopolizes at least one of your two hands as you struggle into and out of cabs or through airport security. Enter the hands-free suit backpack, perfect for the business guy who would rather look like he’s on a camping trip. Weighing just 4.5 pounds, this sturdy, water-resistant bag can safely roll up a whole suit, a 15-inch laptop, and a tablet into the size of a small backpack, and it even has separate compartments for clean and dirty clothes.
Some Steam for the Road
The ultimate wrinkle-busting packing hack of wrinkle-busting packing hacks: packing a steamer. The GQ Fashion Closet squad tested dozens of steamers, and this was by far their favorite travel mode. If you’ve got the space in your suit case, you might as well stash some steam.