The 8 Best Garment Bags for Traveling in Style

Traveling with your normal, casual apparel is hard enough. But if you’re jet-setting for business purposes, you likely also need to bring a suit and tie along, which poses an even bigger issue: moving your suit from A to B without wrinkling and/or creasing it. But that’s exactly what garment bags are for.

There are a lot of options out there for garment bags. And if you’ve purchased a luggage set, it’s pretty likely that you’ve got one. However, not all of them are created equal. If you really care about your formal wear and the vessel you use to transport it, you might want to invest in a dedicated, purpose-built garment bag. You can find our favorite picks on our list of the best garment bags for wrinkle-free travel.

What Is A Garment Bag?

Most suitcases, backpacks, and duffel bags do a pretty good job of hauling gear to and from various destinations. However, they were not made for transporting suits. Typically made of high-end fabrics, suits are actually a bit more delicate than most other menswear and, as a result, are prone to wrinkling and creasing. Garment bags, however, were made specifically to minimize that possibility. Their format is well-suited to suits, no pun intended, by offering the ability to store them without folding them in a way that might crease or wrinkle them. Even still, some are better than others.

Types of Garment Bags

Folding: Like a bi- or tri-fold wallet, folding garment bags will have creases or perforations where you’re supposed to fold them. These are the most common type of garment bags.

Rolling: As opposed to folding bags, rolling bags are intended to literally roll up your suit, not dissimilar to a sleeping bag. These will be much thicker but also won’t crease your suit as easily.

2-in-1: Exactly what it sounds like, a 2-in-1 garment bag is good at being folding or rolling bags, and can serve both purposes.

Packable: Unlike other options that are meant to stand on their own, packable bags are intended to fit inside your suitcase for travel. It should also be noted that many folding options can be packable as well.

What To Look For

Closure: The format of your garment bag will likely determine both how well it keeps your clothes wrinkle-free and how compact it is. However, this is always a compromise, as the two factors are opposing. Some garment bags roll up, making them very compact but increasing the risk of wrinkles. Others offer a more gentle half-fold, but take up more space than their rolling counterparts. You’ll have to decide which is more important to you: fewer wrinkles or better packability.

Exterior Material: You’re probably unlikely to find yourself in a thunderstorm in your travels, but it’s still a good idea to consider the possibility. That means you should pay attention to the external material of your garment bag. Many nowadays are made with coated fabrics that help repel water — keeping your suit safer than it might otherwise be. The tradeoff here is that more weatherproof and durable fabrics tend to be more expensive, so you’ll have to weight the options against your budget.

Interior Lining: Typically, this is not an important consideration, as most every garment bag on the market has a soft liner that’s easy on your delicate apparel. Still, it’s important to be aware of the liner material and how it might affect your travels and your garments. As you might expect, the softer the material, the better it likely is for your suit(s).

Carry Handles: Much like the closure style, the way you carry your garment bag is a fairly big factor to consider. Some offer little more than a pair of suitcase handles, while others might offer wheels and telescoping handles or even backpack straps. If you’re carrying multiple bags through the airport, one of the latter options might be the best. But if you’re only hauling the garment bag, then suitcase handles will work just fine.

Extraneous Details: First and foremost, your garment bag should be a suit-hauler. But they often offer a bit more than can make them all the more enticing for travel. In some cases, they have a couple of extra pockets for accessories and/or other gear. Others are more comprehensive in how much they can carry. It all depends on your individual needs. Just be aware of all these factors when making your considerations.

CALPAK Compakt Large Garment Bag

Best Budget Garment Bag: Just because you own nice suits doesn’t mean that those suits cost you an exorbitant amount of money. To go along with your budget three-piece is this Compakt Garment Bag from CALPAK, a large-sized option made from a water-resistant ripstop nylon exterior and polyester interior. Weighing just 1.45lbs, the tri-fold bag also sports a slim enough profile to fit within another bag entirely if you need to save space or have reached your bag limit on an airplane. Available in eight different colors, it also features adjustable straps and mesh pockets on the inside for other items.

Henty Wingman Commuter Suit Bag

Best for Commuting: Most garment bags out there are decent for travel but are cumbersome and difficult to manage for just about any other kind of commuting. By contrast, it seems like the Henty Wingman Commuter Suit Bag was made to be good on any kind of transport. With backpack straps, it’s easy to haul around from cab to train to plane and back again, but it still features a roll-style closure that will help keep your suit wrinkle-free. It’s also water-resistant and even has a dedicated laptop sleeve — making it great for bike commuting to and from work in the city, as well.

LAT_56° Red-Eye Carry-On Garment Bag

Most Durable: One of the drawbacks to most garment bags is that they’re soft-sided. That means, if you’re traveling and you check your bag or you’re on a very full flight, it could get crushed — resulting in a wrinkly suit. The Red-Eye Carry-On Garment Bag, however, has a unique mil-spec molded EVA construction — giving it structure and much more protection than the competition. In fact, the brand claims they ran over it repeatedly with a Land Rover and it didn’t leave a scratch. It’s also water-resistant, comes with a removable shoulder strap, and has a handy internal organizational system.

Away Garment Bag

Best Overall: Garment bags don’t have to be complicated, and leave it up to the travel experts at Away to find the balance between simple and practical. Capable of fitting two suits, the luggage brand’s folding bag has an external zippered compartment for storing certain essentials on the go, as well as internal pockets for shoes and other sartorial items. It also comes in two colors and has a couple of carrying options. For hanging, the hook comes out of a zippered pocket, but there’s also a luggage clip that attaches to your suitcase. There are a lot of fantastic options out there, but at this price, Away’s garment bag is your best bet.

Satchel & Page Garment Bag

Best Traditional Garment Bag: If you’re looking for a more traditionally-styled garment bag, you could do far worse than this selection from Satchel & Page. Not only is this bag drop-dead gorgeous, but its British waxed canvas and Italian leather exterior is also durable and tough enough that this could end up becoming an heirloom piece you pass on to your children. Of course, it also still has everything you’d expect out of a solid garment bag — like a 600D waterproof nylon lining, organizational pockets, a complete-access opening main compartment, and adjustable leather shoulder straps.

TUMI Garment 4 Wheeled Carry-On

Best Wheeled: TUMI is one of our favorite luggage manufacturers, and for very good reason. In fact, their Garment 4 Wheeled Carry-On serves to exemplify just how good they are at creating travel solutions. Not only does this bag offer enough space for your suit and all the necessary accessories, but it also features omnidirectional wheels and a telescoping handle for convenient hauling through the airport, train station, or even city streets. And yes, it’s compact enough that you could bring it into the airplane cabin with you when you travel.

Shinola The Convertible Traveler Garment Bag

Best Duffel: Alongside their stupendous watches and vintage Americana-inspired gear, Shinola also makes a wide variety of excellent luggage for travel. As such, it should come as no surprise that they’ve built a spectacular garment bag. Balancing form and function, this three-in-one unit features a folding garment bag snapped against a duffel bag, with both able to be used separately as well. Constructed with canvas and Italian Vachetta leather, either bag can be attached to the removable shoulder strap and is closed up with a brass zipper.

Ghurka Packet No. 83 Garment Bag

Best High-End: Far and away the priciest bag on our list, Ghurka’s Packet No. 83 Garment Bag might also be the most beautiful and finest-made on the planet. Crafted in its entirety from top-grain leather, it features a convertible hanging system to meet all your needs, can fit up to three suits at a time, has a heavy-duty brass zipper, comes with an adjustable shoulder strap, and even comes with its own luggage tag. It’s an investment, to be sure, but this is the kind of bag that will be in your family for generations, so long as you take good care of it.

The Best Suits to Buy Under $1,000

Now that you’ve got a suitable garment bag, it’s time to find outfits with which to fill it. Find your ideal attire on our list of the best suits to buy under $1,000.