I am off to Paris at the weekend for a catch up with friends and hopefully enough mulled wine and pretty lights to come back feeling all warm and festive. For the fashion conscious among us, packing for such a weekend city break can be challenging. Even if it’s just for two or three days, you want to look fabulous – especially in Paris! – but hand luggage restrictions and critical looks from boyfriends/girlfriends mean that we must pack sensibly! So here are some of my top tips of how to pack for a weekend city break.
PLANNING
I always like to find out a bit about the general style of a city when planning what to take on a city break. This may sound silly because your style in your style but it’s always nice to not stand out like a sour thumb tourist. Take Paris, for example, I know that the style is quite minimal there which is actually perfect for city break packing as I’ll explain below, and people actually do wear a lot of stripes there so don’t be shy – throw your favourite mariniere in your bag.
THE BASICS
The trick to weekend packing is flexibility. You need to have a few basic items in your case that you can mix and match and also jazz up with accessories – more on that below. I would suggest taking a trusty pair of black skinnies and a button down denim skirt, my recent Black Friday purchase. Neutral colours are perfect for mix/match dressing so in true keeping with my current polo neck obsession, I have chosen this black cropped one from H&M that goes with everything and a striped one to get that French look. A pair of comfy shoes or trainers are a must for city break exploring and my choice is almost always my high top black Converse. They are comfy for during the day but classic enough to wear with a smart-ish outfit for dinner or drinks. It’s all about flexibility.
THE EXTRAS
On top of basic pieces you will need some extra bits to really personalise your outfits. The most space saving way to do this when travelling is with accessories. A hat, whether it be this baker boy hat or large fedora, instantly adds oomph to a look and it doesn’t even need to take up valuable suitcase space! Just wear it travelling, which is also a solution for bed hair if your flight is too early to sort out your mop. Otherwise statement chokers or patterned scarves are great accessories for the neutral palate of your basics. And make sure you bring a more dressed up piece like this gorgeous white blouse or a nice dress. Then you just need to save space in your suitcase for shopping, especially if, like me, Paris is your destination!
I hope you find this little guide useful! I am certainly going to be following some of my own pointers when packing for Paris this weekend. I have a post scheduled for while I’m away but make sure to follow me on INSTAGRAM for travel updates and look out for a kind of Paris photo diary/weekend in Paris post next week!
