The short answer on Travel Outfits for Long Flights: pick one anchor piece, keep the palette to two colours, and let the shoes decide how formal the whole thing reads. Pack for the thing you will do most often, not for the one memorable evening. Fabrics that recover from creasing matter more than weight when the case is small. One piece should lead and the rest should stay quiet; two competing pieces read as an accident. The groups below run from the decision that matters most to the ones you make afterwards.

What decides this is shoulder seam, sleeve length and opacity. Everything else is preference. Two from the first group show the range: Elie Tahari's Sleeveless Silk Satin Contour Shirt at $171, and Khaite's Emmylou T-Shirt in Washed Black at $320. The first is the easy entry point; the second is where the money goes. The shoulder seam should sit on the bone, not past it. Hold it up to the light. Opacity is the thing product photography hides best. A higher price mostly buys materials and finishing, and occasionally it buys nothing at all.

If the top is the point, keep everything below it plain. From the second group, NYDJ's Meredith Jacket - Black ($95) is the one that earns its place, because it works in more than one context without being restyled. The third group is smaller and deliberately narrower, tops, for the decisions you make after the main one. None of this needs the whole group. One piece from each is usually enough.

There are 20 pieces here from 19 brands, $50 to $798, all in stock when this was written. We would not buy all of them, and neither should you. stoneycloverlane.com's Stoney Clover Lane X '47 New Orleans Saints Glitter Rocker Vintage Tee at $50 is the low-risk way in, and lagarconne.com's Pablo Unlined Fluid Silk Shirt at $798 only makes sense if this is a category you already use constantly. Read as a set, they get you close to Travel Outfits for Long Flights without any single purchase being compulsory. Nothing here is included because it is famous, and price is not used as a proxy for quality anywhere on this page. If you take one thing away: one considered purchase beats three hedged ones.