This post was written by Lindy Shopper.

As we travel to events in different cities and dance the night away, sometimes our wardrobe fails us. Sometimes we don’t have backup clothing when our wardrobe fails us because we’ve sweated through all of our clean clothing or something else more catastrophic happens. If you’ve got the right things in your suitcase or dance bag, you may be able to make a quick repair or have a quick solution to keep yourself together and out on the dance floor for a few more dances. Here’s what I like to have in my bag:

SAFETY PINS

They are so essential I carry them around on my keychain. They can do just about anything – mend a seam, hem pants, keep a neckline in place, pin a stray bra strap, or even hold a tie in place. Start keeping the ones they give you to pin your number on in competitions, just put them on your keychain or in your dance bag until you need them. 😉

DOUBLE SIDED BODY TAPE

Also known as “fashion tape,” this stuff is great for many of the things safety pins can do, only with more finesse. If you don’t sweat too much when you dance, you can use it to secure fabrics to your skin to prevent them from moving, and it is also great for fabric on fabric dilemmas at dance events. I’ve used it to secure larger collars or other loose clothing appendages, hem pants, make bows perkier, and to secure gaps when I wear button-down shirts.

SEWING KIT

Yes, I know, this is obvious – but it does come in handy.

STAIN ERASER

I am a messy eater and I will inevitably spill something on myself during a meal. If you are like me, you dress up to go out to dinner with friends before the big Saturday night dance at an event and, in your finery, something saucy falls in your lap and you run to the bathroom to try to blot it out before it sets in. In times like this, it’s a good idea to have something on hand to eliminate the stain, like Tide To Go, so that you can go on to the dance without having to change clothes or wear something with your dinner on it.

SINK WASH

If you happen to be attending a longer dance event and/or have very little luggage space, you may want to consider doing laundry while you are gone and wearing some things twice. I’m thinking about those of you who make multiple shirt changes each night – who wants to sacrifice luggage space to pack all the tee shirts you actually need for a week-long dance event? If your housing situation does not have laundry facilities, you can always wash your clothing in the sink – Tide also makes travel sink packets with detergent for washing your clothes in the sink.

SHOE GLUE

Inevitably, at some point in your dance lifetime, you will be in the middle of an event and the suede on your shoes will start to come off, or maybe even the entire sole. If Dancestore.com isn’t there vending and you didn’t bring backup, you could be in trouble. Have some sort of adhesive handy in your luggage – people have differing opinions about what works best, but barge cement and contact cement seem to be the most popular.