The Best Way To Pack Your Dress Shirt To Avoid Wrinkling
A business trip is coming up. You'll be in meetings all day, but at least you'll be somewhere different and have the opportunity to network and connect with new people. You have your notes and presentation prepared, you're feeling good, confident even. The only issue you're concerned about is the wrinkles in your shirt.
Keeping dress shirts smooth and sharp can feel impossible when it comes to keeping your clothes wrinkle-free in your suitcase. No matter how careful you are with packing them, they always seem to look like you haplessly threw them in your bag with all the wrinkles and creases they have once you unpack.
With that being said, it is possible to pack a dress shirt and minimize, if not completely avoid, producing a wrinkled product. This outcome doesn't come down to a singular action, but rather a series of steps and considerations. The crispness of your shirts not only depends on how you pack, but the shirt's fabric type and the kind of suitcase you use as well.
First steps to preventing wrinkles
If you want your dress shirts to be absolutely wrinkle-free after spending time in a suitcase, your best bet is non-iron dress shirts. These garments are specifically designed and carefully crafted to fulfill their promise of being wrinkle-free. As the name implies, there's no need to iron them, not even after washing them or packing them.
If you'd rather not go out of your way to invest in iron-free shirts, you have other options. With that being said, you can minimize wrinkles with these other methods, but not necessarily keep them wrinkle-free.
Before you even pack them, pay attention to your shirt's material. For example, clothes made from cotton and linen are especially prone to wrinkles. Next, consider your suitcase. The higher your suitcase's quality is, the better it is for preventing wrinkles. A sure-proof way to ensure you'll be wrinkle-free for your meetings is to pack a steamer. This tool doesn't take up too much space and lets you remove any wrinkles your clothes may have incurred in transit.
Folding methods
Next, we'll cover folding methods. There are two main ways to do this to protect your shirt from excessive wrinkles. The first is rolling, which is a top packing strategy. This method is great if you're trying to maximize the amount of space in your suitcase. For dress shirts, all you have to do is fold the sleeves in then fold the shirt in half, the long way. Next, you can simply roll the shirt up and pack it away.
The next method is folding it in a traditional way. Make sure, however, that you pack the shirts tightly — this decreases the amount of wiggle room the shirts have and, as a result, prevents wrinkles (though not entirely). When you're folding the shirt for either method, make sure it's already buttoned up before you begin the process.
Using one or all of these methods can help your dress shirts stay crisp with as few wrinkles as possible after traveling.