Monday, November 19, 2012

The Indispensable Fashion Travel Kit

Men who have an eye for fashion also tend to travel around a lot. Whether you're of the brand loving jet set or the necktie wearing executive class, travel is part of your routine. Your clothes, however, might not be as quick to adjust to transit and the new environment as you. Here's a list of some travel essentials to pack in your luggage that will be sure to give you speedy style solutions and rapid remedies to clothing mishaps.

Classic Equipment
There are items that even your old man was likely to have kept himself for an emergency or two. You've probably thought about getting a few of these things before but weren't sure if you really need them. Here's the categorical answer: you do.

Steam facilities in most hotels render bringing your own iron useless, but it's still a safe practice to always have your own. You never know when you'll need to iron out a suit in a jiffy, such as in the bus station or on a cross country train. All you need is something that can produce heat and give you a bit of steam, which should cost less than $50. That's enough to straighten everything from the most voluminous coat to the frailest necktie.

Always have cleaning materials ready, and that means a lint roller for your sweaters and suits, as well as a polishing cloth for your rings, cuff links and watches. You rarely notice when these small metal accessories get scuffed or dirtied in transit, and these items will help you deal with the blemishes when you do notice.

Fabrics tear and buttons get removed, which is why you need a small sewing kit with a couple of extra buttons, a thimble and a seam ripper. Even if you can manage to hide the offending tear or hole with your necktie, there's no sense in leaving a potential faux pas lie when a pocketable kit is all it takes to solve it. Once you're done with repairs, stow it in a canvas garment bag to prevent more damage without suffocating the fabric.

Shoe care is a must for the fashion conscious traveler, and no man must be solely reliant on those $10 airport or hotel shoe shine jobs. Bring your own shoe shine kit; it need not contain more than a brush, a cloth, some polish and leather conditioner to complete it. While you're at it with your shoes, you may as well get a pair of shoe horns to boot.

Novel Products
Every so often, a brilliant company comes up with a new product that solves the smallest but most irritating problems better than before. Here are some items you may not have heard of before but are still worth specifically requesting.

If you bought a new and overly long pair of pants, for example, but have no time to get them hemmed, hemming tape or fusible bonding web is handy for getting the job done in a jiffy. Just stick a strip between the two sections of fabric, apply some heat with an iron, and voila, you have hemmed pants. It's a quick (albeit irreversible) alternative to sewing.

Should your knit necktie or sweater show signs of pilling, meanwhile, or if the fabric is getting all fuzzy, a sweater stone is a hand women's coats online y solution. No larger than a bar of soap, you simply roll the small block of pumice over the offending area to make it look as good as new. Costing less than $10 but guaranteed to last a decade, it's a nopain purchase that you may as well make for a fashion emergency that tends to happen at the worst times.

No one, unfortunately, really knows when a style crisis will strike. It might come right before that all important presentation with the board, or that crucial meeting with the big client. The man who's serious about having and buying fashion should also be equally determined to maintain it.

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