I go on lots of business trips. When I travel, I fold my clothes and pack them in a suitcase; when I get to my hotel, I unpack, and put clothes into the hotel room's chest of drawers - shirts in one drawer, jeans in another, socks + undies in another, with one drawer for dirty clothes. When I leave,
I have to pack everything into my suitcase again.
This is dumb. What I need is a suitcase that turns into a rack of shelves. That way I'd only need to pack/unpack once each, both times at home.
Hence the idea of the shelfbag. Imagine a flat rectangle of thin, light and stiff plastic, roughly the size of a T-shirt folded in two; with a small hole at each corner.
Several of these "shelves" (say five) are stacked vertically, and anchored at each corner. Telescopic carbon fiber rods (think tent-poles, but shorter) go into the holes to link them vertically. The rods can be locked in either collapsed or extended position.
The whole thing is surrounded by a waterproof, stretchable cloth enclosure, with a horizontal zip for each shelf.
When the rods are collapsed, the overall size of the arrangement is small enough to fit in hand luggage. When they're extended and locked (say 3 times their original length), what you have is a rudimentary system of shelves.
So you extend the rods, fold your clothes and slot them in; then do up the zips, collapse the whole thing and lock it; there's your hand luggage.
When you get to your hotel, just extend the rods, unzip the zips, and there's your clothes on your rack of shelves. Keep the bottom one zipped for your smelly dirty clothes.