The fibres in a knit are interlooped; woven fabrics are made of two sets of yarns that intersect at right angles, she said. Or, more simply, a T-shirt is a knit; a dress cloth shirt is a woven.

“Knits usually have stretch in both directions and have a little more give in both directions,” Brady said.

Which means they tend to regain their shape, which makes them a little more travel-friendly.

Don’t be a purist

By “purist”, we mean insisting on clothing that is 100% one fibre.

Cotton jeans, for example, may not be the best choice if you’re heading somewhere hot and humid. If you sweat (and we all do), they could end up soaked, and stretched.

While nobody needs to experience what your grandparents went through in the 60s, with the hell of polyester trousers, a little bit of Lycra blended with the cotton might make the stretching, at least, less of a problem, said Mary Ankeny, vice president of product development and implementation operations for Cotton Inc, the non-profit research and marketing arm of the US cotton industry.

One pair of trousers did regain their shape after a cool-down (the label said they contained some stretchy fibres), and a light dusting of baby powder inside the legs helped freshen them.

How dry they’re not

Here’s a no-duh newsflash: if it’s so humid that there’s a thunderstorm every afternoon, your jeans are (a) not going to dry, and (b) must be stuffed in a plastic bag for the trip home. Opening the suitcase with that going on inside will be particularly delightful.

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If you’re going to try and wash and dry something, forget wringing out the water. A squeezing action is better, the fabric specialists said, followed by rolling in a towel.

And if you’re lucky, you’ll have a heated towel rack in your bathroom. It’s not a bad replacement for a dryer, even for something as heavy as jeans. As for the

Be specific

Often, you don’t need to soak the entire article of clothing. If you have a spot of something on your shirt , try the shampoo or body wash (test first in an inconspicuous place) that’s usually provided by your hotel, Ankeny said.

Those products will work fine for basin washing too, the fabric experts said. If you try a whole detergent on just one or two items in a not-very-large basin, it’s likely to be too strong, too much, and not rinsed properly, which can leave clothes dingy at best and dirt magnets at worst.

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The ironing room?

Nobody actually likes ironing, but if you have smartish clothes, they look so much better pressed. (Ankeny says you can limit the creasing to formal shirts by rolling them, rather than folding.)

But some hotels, particularly in Europe, don’t have irons or ironing boards. Solution: ask whether there’s an ironing room, Ankeny said. Who knew?

Failing that, a spritz of water from a bottle and a smoothing action may do the trick.