The Secret to Properly Packing A Suitcase

The best method I’ve ever found to prevent clothing from wrinkling in a suitcase was in “The Butler’s Guide to Running The Home And Other Graces” by Stanley Ager and Fiona St. Aubyn. His secret? Tissue paper. Acid free tissue paper to be exact.

Mr. Ager is a top, notch, old school butler in the vein of Downton Abbey who worked for the St. Aubyn family for almost thirty years at their home, St. Michael’s Mount. He knows a thing or two about how to properly run a home and to do so efficiently. The book is definitely more useful for Classics and Funs who might care about the details he recommends attending to in one’s home. But it’s also concise in a way most home books are not. It’s not a tome. All personality types could easily look up what they need when/if they need to figure out how to do something properly.

To keep clothes from wrinkling in a suitcase, you fold your clothing using tissue paper. Even dresses that we think need to be carried in a garment bag come out looking pretty darn good when they’re folded AROUND tissue paper and then if you really want to go crazy, wrapped in it. Women’s clothing needs more tissue paper because the materials tend to be softer. When I read this section of the book, all of the sudden my brain turned on and I realized WHY we are always putting tissue paper around clothes in boxes when we gift an item. Duh!! I’d always thought it was for presentation and didn’t realize it was for protection against wrinkled garments.

Technically, you could also use tissue paper when folding clothing in your drawers at home but I don’t know if even detailed Classics could handle this level of folding on a weekly basis. It would make even Mari Kondo look like a slacker.