Shipping to
United States
  • Words by Mr Mansel Fletcher, Features Editor, MR PORTER

Travel isn't always heavenly; sometimes it involves weeping toddlers (your own, or someone else's), cramped and overheated cabins, and long delays. However, we're more interested in the days when a cab to the airport delivers us in a relaxed mood and the walk to the dedicated business class check-in is brief. When there's enough time in the lounge to clear the inbox on our BlackBerry, drink a coffee and leaf through the day's Wall Street Journal, leaving us able to relax during the flight. To aid that relaxation we like to drink a Bloody Mary before the plane has even pushed back from its stand, and then have a snooze.

For less-than-heavenly journeys the only style advice we can offer is to wear clothes that are easily washable - jeans, a casual shirt and cotton jacket. However, for the rest we look back for inspiration, to the days when people dressed up to get on a plane, air stewardesses made the heart beat faster and you weren't required to undress to make it through the security check.

Life on the budget airlines is close to irredeemable, and dressing up to fly on them feels absurd. However, for flights on old-fashioned airlines, particularly for business travel, it pays to look sharp. With this in mind we pay tribute to some of the men who know, or knew, how to travel in style. Click through the slides, above, to see MR PORTER's guidelines to more elegant travel

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