Tips to Take care of your Interview Suit while Travelling

Some tips mentioned here may be more relevant for people flying for their residency interviews - but I have tried to keep them as general as possible.

1. If you will be flying, all the things that you need to be CARRYING and WEARING to the Interview, should be carried with you on the CARRY-ON Luggage. You don't wanna risk putting any of that in the check-in luggage, which could get lost in transit.

2. It's recommended that you carry the suit and other business/formal clothes in a Garment bag - Here's a Sample Garment Bag. A garment bag with rollers is more convenient to carry around during flight stopovers. Some airlines have a separate closet to hang business suits while traveling, but you will need to call and confirm for this facility. If you are traveling by car, you can hang it off the handle above the window.

3. While packing for travel, first keep the suit wrapped in its original suit protector sleeve. If you don't have one, you can buy a cheap one here.

4. Next, when you fold the wrapped suit to fit in the carry-on luggage, fold it around another garment such a towel or another shirt. Folding the suit on itself for a long time while traveling could give you a nasty crease / wrinkle at the fold line.

5. The suit should be the last thing to go into the bag after everything else is packed, so that it stays on top and is not sandwiched and crushed

6. After traveling there could be a few wrinkles, though usually suits are pretty travel-sturdy. Many people suggest hanging the suit in the bathroom away from direct water, while you take a warm water bath - the steam is a good anti-wrinkle agent for both cotton or wool suit material. I have not tried that myself, but you can research more on that online. You even get Wrinkle-Removing Travel Garment Steamers online.

7. Other option for a wrinkle-free suit - Most probably, the hotel you will be staying at will have a quick dry-cleaning service - if your suit did not make it in a good condition or if you just wanna get that 'crisp' feeling on the interview day..it may be worth a few dollars :-). So if you planning to do that, call the hotel before hand and verify the cost / time of the service.

8. Yet another option is to simply wear the suit on yourself while traveling with some other pants and then working on the wrinkle-removal options we discussed above, after the journey. One great wrinkle remover is the Downy Wrinkle Releaser, which many people swear to be so effective that they do not need the electric iron anymore.


9. DO NOT hot-iron your suit - makes it look shiny as if snails crawled all over them ;-).


10. DO NOT put your suit in a laundry / washing machine for a wash - doing so might sound ridiculous to most of you, but a friend of mine did it- lol



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Also Read:

- Rules for carry-on flight luggage: official Transportation security Administration Website