Hendrik Pohl

Men's fashion is a world full of delicate items. Silk ties must never be creased. Cordovan shoes should always be molded. Shirts should always look freshly pressed, else suffer the indignation of sitting through a meeting looking like a slob. That's a bit of a problem if your work needs you to travel regularly yet still arrive looking presentable.

Everyone goes on these kinds of trips every once in a while, the kind that keeps you away from home for weeks, even months. Whether it's for business or leisure, the challenge is always to look good while you're logging in all those miles. But when you're literally living from a suitcase, it often proves easier said than done. Here's how to look (and feel) well-dressed, even without full access to your wardrobe.

Like you, your clothes probably find any long trip a problematic proposition. Aside from the risk of getting misplaced, stolen at the carousel or sent to Vietnam instead of Vancouver, there's also that ever-present threat of wrinkles and creases. If your goal is to get to your destination in style, then wrinkles and creases present the greatest liability to your clothes.

Ever since the Wright brothers first got their plane off the ground, fashion-conscious men the world over have been trying to grapple with traveling stylishly. It's a well-known fact of life that very few outfits do survive the average red-eye without ending up looking like something the cat dragged in. But there are certain segments of men's fashion that travel well; from there, it's all a matter of putting them together in a smart way.

Buying the right type of suitcase has a lot to do with knowing what type of conditions your suitcase will encounter while on its journey as well as understanding just how important a suitcase is for protecting the integrity of your clothing. The right suitcase can mean the difference between arriving at your destination with ready-to-wear articles of clothing or arriving with nothing more than a wrinkled mess of clothing that must be pressed at the hotel before you can show your face in public.

As soon as the sun comes out and the weather gets warmer, you'll likely want to go to the beach after suffering three months of cabin fever. You'll need to get a few things to keep yourself looking good once you get there, though; your daily suit and tie are far from comfortable beach styles. Here are some things you'll want to have on your shopping list.

There is traditional Mexico fashion, which is a big straw hat and a serape (a cape-like covering that you throw over your head that covers both the back and the front), some old jeans and scuffed cowboy boots. Or the style of the Mariachi, with the wide-brimmed black-sequined hat, black cowboy shirt with silver buttons, black pants with silver buttons down the side and black cowboy boots.