Colour Co-ordinating
When travelling, you have to plan to colour co-ordinate. Where do you keep all your colour-co-ordinated outfits?
Travel Trunks
Years ago, as museums and auctions show, travellers had giant suitcases or trunks, in heavy, sturdy wood covered in leather, which held and organised enough for the three months. That was how long it took you, before plane travel, to cruise on a ship overseas, then go overland.
Your trunk opened up like a giant book, with two hinged sections. Inside it resembled a mini-wardrobe, with hanging clothes one side and a mix of wide mouth shape drawers on the other side.
Above or below the drawers were half size or pigeon hole cubed compartments for jewellery and accessories. You carried separate locked jewellery boxes and hat boxes for giant hats. Opened, the suitcase looked like modern folding bars, which hide alcoholic drinks in daytime.
This system worked well for the rich and famous, who paid porters at every stop. I look with admiration and envy at the trunks of famous people, such as the dancer Pavlova, who travelled from North London to Australia and New Zealand.
Naturally her dancing and day time shoes mattered. So did her appearance before an admiring public, being photographed in newspapers. She had accessories for every outfit in matching fabrics, colours and styles.
Size Matters
My first trip to a tent weekend left me with aching shoulders from a heavy backpack, so exhausted I have never wanted to try camping or hiking again.
Later, I recall travelling with a suitcase which my mother had packed, so heavy that I was in pain, left behind at train stations, so slow I often lost my group and panicked. arriving at the destination exhausted, miserable and (at certain periods of the month) often tearful.
Complete Contents
What about the contents? I cringe with embarrassment when I recall travelling with a suitcase which I packed.
MisMatch Colour Trauma
My own first efforts at packing were traumatic. I tried to take some of each pretty colour, red, pink, orange, throwing in favourite or newly bought separates. I hat separates. That was how I looked. As if the other half of my outfit had got separated. I had red trousers with pink tops, and orange nail varnish. To complete the disaster, I had a blue bag and green shoes. Dressing for the morning or evening took forever.
Ten years later I discovered lists, in the age of lists, the packing list. I even wrote a travel book with a packing list at the back. One of my first books. Enquire Within series. To this day I get out my old book and adapt the packing list.
Dictionary. Two purses for money at home for taxi and at destination for taxi. Nail varnish. - and nail varnish remover. Nowadays nail varnish remover pads won't spill, which weigh less and won't be confiscated at security. Warm gloves. Hat or cap with visor.
Colour Co-ordinating
When I became a travel writer I simplified everything. Black skirts, jacket and trousers and bag and shoes. White blouses (one for each day or evening, maximum seven. After that you probably had at least two days at one place where a blouse had time to wash and dry.
Smart white blouse for a quick change for evening. Folding gold or silver scarf in handbag in case we are told no time to go back to the hotel to change before dinner.
Space for Souvenirs
My other handy trick was to pack gifts inside a second bag in my main suitcase. Gifts go to hosts. Space is left for gifts to people back home or your souvenirs. The bag saves you constantly buying a new bag to carry gifts. Removing the bag leaves more space for souvenirs or literature.
Shopping At Destination
If you are in one place you have time to shop for local clothes. If on the move, you don't. If you are a large Western size, you may find items your curvy or voluminous size in India, and Australia and New Zealand. (But even slim and skinny girls from the USA and New Zealand find small size swimsuits in Asia don't fit if they are made with shorter bodies to suit shorter girls.)
On a conference you may not have time for changing clothes. One event follows another. What can you do?
Weekender (Canadian travel clothes firm which reached the UK) used to make, and still do, accessories in black or gold and silver, to hoist up one side or both of a skirt or dress to make it more revealing and glamorous for the evening. Basically, you have a doughnut shape and pull the fabric through the middle.
The little black dress looks wrong in tropical countries with exotic flowers, fuchsia and magenta orchids, bright blue seas and skies, bright green vegetation. Black is worn by widows. Youngsters wear bright colours.
Colourful Singapore
When I was a teacher of English as a foreign language in Singapore the head of the language school told me the pupils had complained that I wore black and white every day, which was boring and depressing. The head of the school asked me to wear a different bright colour every day, such as red on Monday, orange on Tuesday, pink on Wednesday, green on Thursday, blue on Friday.
Expanding, Organising Bags
The last time I lost a bag was when the handle of my bag was slashed in Marbella, Spain. The thieves crashed the stolen car and ran, so I got my bag back. Long ago.
For the first time in decades of travel, hundreds of trips, for the first time in low crime Singapore, I 'lost' a bag.
I originally bought my bag, messenger style, a small should bag with a long strap, from Scotts of Stow. The one I 'lost' or had stolen this year, 2015, in Singapore, was burgundy. I searched for a replacement on the internet and the bag is still available, but only coloured stone (off-white) or black.
Simplified Colours
This basic choice of colours may suit you. One of each colour should carry you through winter and summer, or day and night, without clashing with any other colours. Black and white is great for bags which co-ordinate with all your winter black or winter white, or daytime white and evening black, or white at night if you want to be visible to motorists when crossing the road.
However, if you tire easily and are lifted by red, or already have a bright red bag or two, and want a more refined plummy colour, alas, no burgundy, yet. I'm still hunting rival bags. (And if you see my burgundy bag on anybody, ask them where it came from. If it's thrown in a corner in Singapore - it's mine, please rescue it. If you get it back to me I'll love you forever.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker. I hope you enjoyed this post. If you have any topic you would like me to research, let me know. Please follow my blog on travel, read my other blog posts, look at my spelling tips, grammar tips, performing comic poetry on Youtube, like me on Facebook, and link to me on LinkedIn and buy my latest books on quotations from Lulu.com .
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