I’m leaving tonight for my trip to Dubai and I’ve been thinking carefully about packing. Now our itinerary is pretty packed and every night we are expected to dress up in cocktail wear, so I’m packing more than I would if I wasn’t going out to so many fancy restaurants. But I wanted to share one tip that has occurred to me recently, and that is, the versatility of the multi-coloured skirt, and in fact it’s more functional than just a two coloured pattern. You may think that it would limit what you can pack, but I’m going to show you how versatile it really is.
This floral skirt I’m packing (from Forever New) I can wear in a multitude of ways, for different occasions. I can take it dressy, or just wear it to the shopping mall.
Here I’m making it something that I’d wear out to dinner or to the High Tea that I’m going to have at the Burj Al Arab (how exciting is that!), I’d add a little shrug or pashmina to cover my shoulders for cultural modesty.
Here are another two dressy options. See how easy it is to pull a top colour from the skirt pattern and coordinate that way. This is one of the benefits of knowing your colours, as your clothing automatically creates wardrobe capsules, without having to try!
Onto some smart casual looks.
I’ve taken some more relaxed tops here and co-ordinated them with the skirt, jewellery and some easy to walk in shoes. Or I could wear a dressier shoe with these tops to smarten them up more.
And lastly and even more casual set of outfits that would be great for hitting the mall or seeing some sites. I’m not going to be taking all of these looks with me to Dubai as I’m not there that long! What I have done to sort my packing out and make it more obvious of what I need to bring is decide on how many outfits I need for each dressing category.
onto my packing tips.
Packing Tips for My Trip to Dubai
Itinerary
Sitting down with your itinerary and categorizing the kinds of clothes you may need really helps you to figure out what you need to take and make sure that you don’t leave anything important out.
My itinerary is jam packed (you’ll be finding out even more soon) and I need multiple changes of clothes per day based on the activities we are doing and I’ve figured out that it means for the 6 days I’m in Dubai I need:
- 5 x Cocktail outfits
- 4 x Smart/Dressy outfits
- 3 x Everyday Outfits
- 3 x Functional for more physical/outdoor activities
- 2 x Travel (each way, though I may just wear one outfit both ways).
Some of these may overlap, and I’ll be doing a whole lot of mixing and matching. Because the climate is hot and I’ll probably get a bit whiffy, I can’t recycle my tops so easily (and I’m not washing while I”m away) so will take more than I’d pack otherwise, so I can have a fresh top or dress each day. Of course there is the underwear and socks, which I’ll be stuffing into my sunhat!
Then there is one other category of clothing I like to take, and that’s a set of exercise gear. That way, when I wake up at 4am as my body clock hasn’t adjusted to the time zone, I can go to the hotel gym and do some exercise, hopefully to make me tired so I can go back to sleep!
Toiletries – in small containers, not full sized
- Moisturiser – face creams
- Makeup
- Makeup brushes
- Deodorant
- Nail scissors
- Emery board
- Nail polish remover wipes
- Nail polish colour that I’m wearing on my toes to keep them fresh
I don’t take shampoo/conditioner as it’s something I expect the hotel to have!
Grooming
I generally use the hotel hair dryer but bring along
- Hair straightener
- Hair curler when it’s a humid climate
- Optional extra that I’ve been recommended by a blogging/travelling colleague is a garment steamer to get out the creases in my clothes from the time spent in the suitcase (and I hate ironing and I’m always worried about the garment getting burned or having dirty old rusty water spat by the iron on my clothes).
Tech Gear
As this is a work trip I’m bringing:
- Laptop and power cables
- Wireless mouse
- iPad
- iPhone
- Selfie camera arm
- DSLR camera plus 2 extra lenses
- Tripod
- Camera Remote
- Cables to download photos
- USB port extender
- Power cables for everything
- 3 Travel adaptors (I like to leave one in the bathroom, maybe one on the desk for laptop and have one by the bed for my phone
- iphone battery charger for on the go (taking photos etc will mean it drains quickly)
More Tips on Wearing Skirts
6 Things to Look for When Choosing Dresses and Skirts for Relaxed and Casual Environments
Hope you have a great time and get a little bit of sleep!!!!
I don’t think you could be accused of being unprepared! Don’t forget to have a cocktail for us.
Don’t you worry Kate I won’t!
Ooohhh..you will love the Burj. Just make sure you go hungry, as there is lots of food!!
Hi, I hope you’re having great time in Dubai ☺ I find this post very interesting and useful and have two questions. The first one is related to these gorgeus silver shoes. I remember a post of yours featuring a blue knee-lenght dress and several different shoes in which you recommend silver shoes to ladies with grey hair. Would you have chosen these shoes if you were still a brunette? My second question is about column of colour. Can you create a column using a pattern or a print or you need only solid garments? I thought of small, dense print, medium to low contrast. Thank you and enjoy your stay in Dubai. Best regards, Jelena
I wouldn’t have chosen the silver shoes as a brunette, I would have gone for black shoes which would have worked better for me. As far as a column of colour goes, if the skirt has a dominant background colour you can still create one, but if the pattern is very ‘all over’ then probably harder to do.