How to Pack Dresses Without Them Arriving Ruined

Whether you are going home for December, travelling for a wedding, or flying out for two weeks, the problem is the same. The dress that looked perfect when you packed your box now comes out creased in places that an iron cannot easily reach.

Most of it is solvable before you zip the bag.

Roll the soft things, fold the structured ones

Rolling works for jersey, cotton, anything with give in it. It takes up less room and it avoids the hard crease lines that folding leaves.

Structured dresses and anything with a stiffer fabric do better folded, but folded with something soft inside the fold. A rolled up scarf or a t-shirt along the crease line stops the fabric from pressing itself into a sharp edge.

Either way, the worst thing you can do is fold a dress flat and then put heavy things on top of it.

Know what creases before you pack it

Linen creases if you look at it. Pure cotton creases. Silk creases and then sulks about it.

Jersey, crepe, most viscose blends and anything with a little stretch travel well and come out close to how they went in.

If you are buying something specifically for a trip, this matters more than almost anything else about it. A beautiful linen dress is a liability in a suitcase.

The dress you need first goes in last

Obvious once somebody says it. If the wedding is the day after you land, that dress goes on top where you can get it out and hang it immediately.

Digging to the bottom of a packed bag for the one thing you needed is how dresses get creased twice.

The irreplaceable one travels with you

If there is one dress the whole trip depends on, put it in your hand luggage. Fold it over your arm through the airport if you have to.

Luggage goes missing, and it tends to go missing on exactly the trips where you cannot replace what was in it.

Hang everything the moment you arrive

Before food, before anything. The longer a dress stays folded after a flight, the more the creases set.

Most creasing will drop out on its own overnight if the dress is hanging in a room with some air. What is left usually comes out with twenty minutes in a steamy bathroom while you shower, which is easier than finding an iron in a hotel or somebody's guest room.

Pack fewer dresses than you think

The usual mistake is packing one outfit per event plus two extra in case. You come home having worn half of it.

Three or four pieces that can be restyled will cover a two week trip comfortably. Change the shoes, the jewellery and the way you wear your hair and nobody at any of the events is tracking what you wore to the last one.

The Baobab Set earns its place in a suitcase for exactly this reason, because two pieces that work together and apart give you more combinations out of the same space.

Shop AMARAÉ for pieces that travel well. Delivery across Nigeria and worldwide.