Creating a great outfit for a specific occasion can take a lot of time and consideration, and when doing this at home, you'll have access to your entire wardrobe. When traveling, you significantly diminish your choice of clothing and so have to make some great choices when it comes to which clothes to pack and which to leave behind. You'll more likely start with choosing suitable items based on the weather and climate of your destination, but after this, you'll be thinking about what looks good and what goes with what. To help you with looking fashionable while traveling, we've put together a handy little guide for you to follow.

Choose Clothes You Can Mix And Match

Because of the lack of access to your entire clothing collection, you'll need to carefully choose which clothes you bring with you. The best piece of advice we can give you here is to avoid picking specific outfits for specific events. For example, don't choose a three-piece suit solely for one planned evening meal. Instead, what you want to do is to pack a selection of clothes that can all go well together. Having a collection of mix and match items from shirts and trouser combos to accessories and shoes with matching styles will provide you with a number of great combinations, potentially giving you access to a wealth of different outfits from just nine or ten different clothing items.

Be Conscious Of Your Colors

Not only should you be wary of the style of clothes you bring, which can go well with each other item you bring, but you'll also have to be wary of which colors you choose to bring too. There's not much point in bringing a varied selection of clothes to mix and match together if none of the colors go well together. You should avoid going too eccentric for both your top and bottom halves, and likewise, avoid muted tones for every piece of clothing. Instead, choose darker colors for your shirts or trousers, and then opt for a brighter selection for the other. More often than not, most will choose brighter colors for their shirts and t-shirts. It's also worth avoiding anything with large designs as these will limit you to casual spaces whereas a blank t-shirt or polo can work well for casual and smart-casual events. 

Consider Functionality

As well as thinking about the appearance of your clothes, you'll also want to consider their functionality. If your vacation is going to be an active, outdoorsy one, then you'll want to make sure to bring comfortable and stylish clothes. Alongside comfort, the clothes, and accessories you bring should also be functional for the situations you'll be in. If you are enjoying some long hikes to explore your destination further, you'll want to bring a quality backpack with you, rather than a satchel or messenger bag, for example. You'll also want to avoid having bulky items, such as an over-stuffed wallet. Scrap your large coin-carrying wallet for a slender yet functional card holder such as a stylish Gucci wallet. You can find them on SSENSE with many different designs to choose from.

Have Some Variety In Quality

Not every piece of clothing you own is going to work for every situation, regardless of how well-crafted your mix and match collection is. After all, you're not going to be wearing a full suit by the pool, but you're also not going to want to be wearing a t-shirt and shorts at a classy restaurant. While you will want to have some versatility in your outfits, you will want to vary the quality of your selection too. However, the white shirt from your suit that you pack for your classy event, whether it's a 5-star restaurant, a business trip function, or even a wedding, can be retrofitted and worn as a smart-casual shirt when visiting a bar or grabbing a bite to eat with friends. Just be sure that you have a variety of quality in your clothes to suit different situations.

Choose Your Shoes Carefully

When packing your suitcase, it's easy to run out of space once you start adding multiple pairs of shoes. While shoes are a very important aspect of any outfit, you must consider how limited your space is. While a pair of sandals can be fairly compact and are pretty much a necessity for a relaxing beach vacation, a pair of dress shoes are quite rigid. You might not be able to avoid taking these, depending on what you're going to be doing on your vacation, but it's worth trying to choose multi-functional shoes that can be worn on more than one occasion. Remember that you're going to be wearing a pair to travel in for a start, and you can make use of some great packing tips to fit your shoes in your suitcase. However, you'll still want to stick to maybe one extra pair alongside those you wear during the journey. Consider one smart-casual pair that would work with a suit as well as a casual outfit and an everyday pair that works with jeans as well as shorts for strolling around the town or the hotel.