fold everything; Three packing pros teach Sarah Mower a lesson in traveling light.

Byline: Sarah Mower

For a woman who has no option but to get on a plane (it's work) and face security lines, likely delays, and the fear of lost luggage, there is only one rational way to travel these days: strictly carry-on. Packing to stun through several days of meetings/lunches/receptions/dinners is tricky, and as airlines ratchet down cabin-bag dimensions (currently, 9 x 14 x 22 inches, i.e., 45 linear inches and 40 pounds max) and snatch away precious grooming products over three ounces, it's only getting trickier. How to fit in everything you need and nothing redundant? Even more important, how to rise above the regulations feeling chic instead of stylistically cramped?

Ask the great carry-on travelers of the fashion world: an editor, a buyer, and a designer who circumnavigate the globe almost constantly. Case study one: Vogue Fashion Director Tonne Goodman, who is continually in transit to shoot locations, and, to the awe of colleagues, habitually traverses Paris Fashion Week (and its dozens of demanding occasions) without ever checking in a suitcase. Case study two: Yasmin Sewell of Browns in London, who ricochets between Paris, Milan, and New York on buying sorties and has been known to fly home to Australia with nothing in cargo hold. Case study three: Tomas Maier, who flies twice monthly between Florida and Milan while designing Bottega Veneta and his own collection, observing women in their working habitats along the way. "It's my rule never, ever, to check in. It's too much of a waste of time," he says, "and, like all of us, I've lost luggage. So I learned about packing, minimizing, taking things that work together. Very little, but the right stuff. It's liberating."

Their challenge: How would they each deal with a three-day, two-night business trip with an evening event thrown in? "When life is complicated," asserts Goodman, "your packing has to be the reverse. My trick is uniform, repetition, and miniaturization." So rigorous is her wardrobe system, she could give master classes. "I wear Gap white jeans, which I find chic, classic, uncomplicated, clean. I put velvet Tod's loafers with them, which make white jeans look snappy, wear my Ann Demeulemeester blazer on the plane, and take a thin cashmere shawl I can also use as a blanket on the bed."

For day, she adds two Thomas Pink fitted shirts: "You just roll them right up in the dry-cleaning bag, on the hanger, and they come out fine"; and packs two Club Monaco pencil skirts (one khaki, the other black), in "polished cotton, so they can do evening. I take navy satin Prada sandals, which also work at night, and a turtleneck."

Her bag is a Louis Vuitton roller. "It's a perfect size," she says, "and you can bulge it out a lot. On top, I put my Hermes tote, in which I stow purse, phone, Treo, adaptors, chargers, paperwork, and my A. I. ...