The Art and Technology of Packing

This article is about technology but it’s also about innovation: How do we do things and can we do them better? This technology is simple enough-a bag-but it’s more about new ways of using the bag. It’s called packing. Or more specifically, modular packing. I don’t travel as much as I used to but I do travel. I’ve learned a few tricks Over the years. And what has struck me is how, on the surface, not much has changed in thousands of years. Early business travelers would grab their stuff-a spare bearskin, a backup club, a few flints and throw it into some sort of primeval pouch, hitch it over their shoulder and hurry after migrating mammoth prey, who were already pulling out of the terminal gate.(OK, I didn’t do much research for this bit.) Nowadays, things aren’t much different. We leave everything to the last minute, throw it into a bag, sit on it while getting the spouse to call a cub. Sure, our wheeled carry-on may look more sophisticated, but the technology is basically the same as that used by our hirsute forebears: A container, all our stuff, a mad rush and a mess. So how can we do it differently? To me the big innovation in packing is the module. The thinking is simple: Why collect all the individual things we are going to take with us on our trip and then lump it together? Most of us, if the flight is not actually about to depart, make little piles of our underpants, socks, shirts, etc on our bed before cramming them into the suitcase, hoping they fit, squeezing a sock-ball here, a handkerchief there. At the other end, we throw the case on the bed, rummage around inside, with shirts, vests, scarves and boots flying everywhere in a around inside, action replay. It’s horrible, and if we then have to move room, hotel, or continent again on the trip chances are not a single item of clothing looks anything like when we bought it.

Packing Awareness
So technology’s answer to this problem is: Stay at home. Let someone else do the trip. No actually, its modular packing, sometimes called packing cubes. It’s simple enough: Instead of throwing everything into one bag, you put them into smaller sub-bags, which then go into the big bag. So the big bag, instead of being a pile of sundry items in varying degrees of crumplitude, is a neat collection of different size sub-bags, or modules. This may not sound like much of an innovation, and some of you may do this already, but an extensive research revealed a very low level of modular packing awareness. Even many campers don’t seem to do this kind of thing to the extent I imagined, unless I happen to have some really hopeless camping friends. Modules simplify things immensely. But it’s not just about the modules, it’s about how they’re designed and how you use them. The modules have a zip-around top, usually webbed so you can see what’s inside. They come in different sizes and shapes. UK-based Life venture < www.lifeventure.co.uk> offer what they call “pack able mesh cubes” ( I can’t see me calling them that halfway up a mountain either), while California-based Eagle Creek sell the Pack-It Cube (slightly better name) and have recently introduced a new range with padded sides, so they keep their shape better and don’t squash the contents too much. Then it’s up to how you use them. The best way to pack kinds of clothes is to roll them, rather than fold them. Roll up a T-shirt and you’ll find it’s much less creased when you pull it out. Rolling also makes them easier to pack in a cube. Underpants, socks and smaller items can be folded over before being rolled into little balls. Eagle Creek does a series of special shirt and Pants containers, where, if you follow their folding instructions to the letter, you end up with clothing that survives a long trip in surprisingly good condition. For geeks, Eagle Creek does a series of special shirt and pants containers, where, if you follow their folding instructions to the letter, you end up with clothing that survives a long trip in surprisingly good condition. For geeks, Creek makes some nice padded bags that are great for stuffing all the digital detritus you may bring with you but don’t want to put in your laptop bag.


Respectful Security
One of the great things about packing cubes is that you can then unpack without really unpacking. Pull out the cubes from the big case, throw them in a drawer and you’re unpacked. Or, if you’re short of space, leave them in the case. If you need to get something out while you’re on the road, in the hotel lobby or on the airport runway, you won’t have to pull everything out. Also, I’ve noticed that airport security see your baggage and tend to be more respectful, since unmatched panties and bras don’t spring out immediately when the case is opened and land on their head. An innovation I’ve developed myself (I call it the VariCube) is to avoid the logical choice of putting all your undershirts in one cube, your socks in another. That’s fine for a short trip. But if you’re going to be moving from place to place, it makes better sense to divide the trip into segments, clothes-wise. Each sub-bag, then, contains enough clothes for each part of the trip, so you only need to open one cube at a time. Modular packing is a great innovation and I’ve tried to convert everyone I know. Including you, now that you’ve read this. There are side-effects, however. One is appalling smugness. Another is that I’m so mobile I tend to change hotels, or hotel rooms, at the drop of a hat. If I don’t like the view, the carpet or the way they folded the toilet paper, I’m out of there, knowing I can throw my cubes into a case in a second. It’s empowering, but can be somewhat irritating for any anyone traveling with me. Unless they’re fellow packing cuboids themselves, in which case they’re probably already checked out and waiting in the cub, the engine running.


We remain with regard,
E-tailors at www.mycustomtailor.com

Preening Returns To Form -- And Thats Just Dandy

Its nice to know that American men havent taken recent corporate scandals lying down. No sir. They sucked in their guts, bade farewell to their families and hurried to the mall. The urge to look corporate -- sleek, commanding, prudent, yet with just a touch of hubris on your well-cut sleeve -- is an unexpected development in a time of business disgrace.

But surprising or not, sales of mens tailored clothing increased 23.7 percent last year to $4.3 billion, with suit sales alone jumping 34 percent. That halts an eight-year decline.

Some of the gain came from men replenishing wardrobes gone stale from casual Fridays. They probably also discovered that a suit, with its clean lines, was a more effective means of transmitting rank to a dull colleague than a golf shirt and a pair of khakis, and a much nicer way to spend ones bonus.

And though The Apprentice produced a type that represents to many in business the worst human qualities, there is no denying the impact of youth on suits, which are now more tapered, with narrower sleeves and flat-front trousers. This can transform seersucker or flannel into a sexy, yet still formal, package.

Young men are driving this trend, and its the guy in his 40s and 50s who needs to get moving, says Bill Downes, the mens buyer at Wilkes Bashford in San Francisco. In the business world, you want to project youth and vitality. Dockers and a baseball hat, thats not going to do it.

David Witman, the corporate merchandising manager for menswear at Nordstrom, does not agree that young men alone are behind the strong sales, but as he sees it, they now perceive tailored jackets and such accouterments as French-cuff shirts as cool. Its a completely new market for us, Witman says.

Beyond the dandy

But ultimately the timing of the suits return suggests a social shift, toward a climate of conservatism obviously, but also to a culture of money and business.

Theres a huge fascination with the corporate world, with big salaries and big businesses, says Tom Kalenderian, the general merchandising manager for mens fashion at Barneys New York. And that comes with the acceptance that you have to look the part.

To Kalenderian, the spike in tailored clothing recalls the 1980s, when New York was awash in Wall Street cash. Sales of made-to-measure suits at Barneys, which on average cost $2,200, have increased 59 percent during the past three years. More men are ordering custom shirts, suits with custom-color linings, jackets with real buttonholes on the sleeves and $2,000 custom-made shoes.

Its absolutely a keeping-up sort of thing, says Kalenderian, who describes the customer for all this excellence -- usually an investment banker or a chief executive but in any case rarely a middle manager -- as beyond valley of the dandy.

Many men dress well for the pleasure of it and because they know that clothes can telegraph all kinds of messages, above all belonging. Michael Millon, a venture capitalist in New York, recalls telling a friend in Paris who worked for Pierre Balmain that it seemed a waste of her talent to keep such a job just because she got nice clothes. Besides, he said, who would even notice the difference? To which she replied, Another woman in the same clothes.


That was an awakening for me, says Millon, 65, who wears well-cut, costly suits by Brioni and Kiton and admits to a weakness for shoes, especially in crocodile. At last count, he had 300 pairs.

As fashion commentators such as Anne Hollander, the author of Sex and Suits, and Tom Wolfe have observed, it is men, not women, who are more fashion-evolved, in part because of the 200-year-old tradition of the suit and in part because their clothes have more hidden esoteric details that a man can obsess over.

Peacock displays seem to come in 20-year cycles, reflecting the stock market as well as social changes. In the 60s, when Wolfe wrote The Secret Vice, about the mania for custom suits, Pop artists had come uptown, London was swinging, and it was cool to have your clothes made on Savile Row. Even Lyndon Johnson did, ordering six suits from the firm of Carr, Son & Woor, following the 1960 election, with the instructions, I want to look like a British diplomat.

Any outmoded term used to describe a current fascination invariably overstates the case, however. Just because a man splashes around color and pattern doesnt make him a dandy if the basic canvas -- the suit -- fits poorly. Similarly, a man can put on a $300 suit, and if he has gone to the trouble to have it properly fitted, and the rest of the picture isnt offensive, he will be noticed.

Even for those men who have mastered clothes, who perhaps realize its better to be in the hands of an obscure tailor than a flashy boutique salesman, there are limits to self-expression. Even in New York, the business world is still conservative, and dress is ruled by two areas, finance and corporate law. The most inflexible of rules is this: If youre a middle manager, you dont show up your boss or a client.

Im a banker at a branch, says Robert Magliulo, 35, a vice president at Citibank, who deals with private investors. Can I step out? Yes, but its not the norm. I have a Canelli suit that I bought at a discount. To me, its smoking. But I rarely wear it to the office and never if Im meeting with a client.

Magliulo, who has on a black Hugo Boss suit, a white shirt and a red Ferragamo tie as he speaks, continues: Its all perception. A client sees a guy in a $2,000 suit, and he thinks, He makes too much money; hes going to steal my money. So Magliulo considers the emotional response of a client, who very often may be dressed in a button-down shirt and khakis.

And as the corporate scandals have shown, its the chief executive who sets the tone, in both virtue and vice.

Its all about the CEO, Kalenderian says. If the CEO is a slob, then everybody is a slob. If hes immaculate, everybodys immaculate. A middle manager wouldnt get caught dead dressing against the CEOs sense of style.

Lets hope, though, that he will draw the line at cooking the books.



We remain with regards,
E-tailor at www.mycustomtailor.com