PARIS — Past the plush Napoleon III sofas, through a forest of orchids and under the keen eye of doormen in pillbox hats, a guest crept out of the Ritz Paris hotel on a mortifying mission.

The guest, dear reader, was me (while working on an article about the Ritz during fashion season some years ago), and this was not a walk of shame.

With a lumpy bag humped over my shoulder, I was headed to a coin-operated laundromat, surely the first guest at this storied establishment to take out his own washing.

I had my reasons.

Packing strategies take on an urgency when your occupation requires you to spend as much as a month at a time following the fashion caravan through some of the most beautiful and expensive cities in the world, as hundreds of retailers, journalists, stylists and photographers routinely do.