A British student holidaying in Ibiza recently made a serious sartorial slip-up, by wearing a one-shoulder swimsuit to a pool party upside down. Yes, not backwards but upside down, leading Lyndsey Brown – who only realised her error after contacting the swimsuit company – to wonder why her crotch was exposed. Accidental flashing aside, wardrobe malfunctions are far more common than you might think. Here’s how to deal with some of the main offenders:

Spills

From coffee to ketchup, beetroot to bolognese, the potential for spills is why white outfits continue to be a universal power move. For how to cope with them, think: brooch. If you don’t have a brooch to hand, look to Phoebe from Friends for inspiration: she used a gaudy festive decoration to cover a hummus stain. Or, for something slightly subtler, try a clip-on earring or even a hair slide. Or do a Jennifer Lawrence, who strategically positioned her clutch bag to cover a pizza stain at the Kentucky Derby – books and totes will also work. For a wholly different approach, make like Michelle Pfeiffer in One Fine Day. When her son squirts what looks like Ribena on her, she wears his spare T-shirt instead. If this option means you’ll be wearing a cropped dinosaur T-shirt to the office, call on your vast reserves of inner confidence.

Rips

For this season’s slip dresses and satin skirts, the danger of tears is high on the rip-tor scale. If you don’t have Bondaweb to hand, why not follow the example of Kate Moss? When her vintage Christian Dior dress ripped at the hem while she was at a V&A gala in 2007, she shaved inches off the length and made it a mini-dress. We can’t promise yours will also go on to sell at a charity auction for £600, but it’s worth a pop.

Back to front

Celine Dion in a backwards tuxedo. Photograph: Jim Smeal/WireImage

If you look down halfway through the day and realise you are wearing something the wrong way round, you are in high-fashion company: sweatshirts, tuxedos and tops have been worn back to front by Celine Dion, Taylor Swift and Kate Middleton, as well as on the catwalk. Of course, you could pop to the loo and turn it around, or else just pat yourself on the back and mumble something about “the zeitgeist”.

Straps

As Isaac Newton might have said, “gravity explains the motion of straps”, but having a scientific explanation doesn’t make them slipping down your arm any less annoying. Luckily, an increasing number of shops seem to be swapping standard straps for adjustable, bra-style ones. Until this is more widely available, though, one option is double-sided tape attached to both bra and dress strap, or hold them together with some trusty safety pins.

Another remedy – more to help you style out any malfunction than eradicate it – is to learn from Judy Finnigan’s 2001 National Television awards appearance and wear a bra to match your outfit. Had she been in a black bra rather than blush-pink one, she thinks, her malfunction would have been much less of a “moment”.

Nipple slips

Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl. Photograph: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Whether Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl nipple slip was an accident or planned is so hotly contested that it has become known as “Nipplegate”. Either way, accidental nipple is a problem many have faced for real. There are various ways around this, from strategically placed double-stick tape to something called “nipple concealers”. The Chrissy Teigen-approved approach, though, is more environmentally friendly – issue a tongue-in-cheek apology for letting your friends and family down: “I have nipples. It’s not something I’m proud of.”