Monday, November 23, 2009

Jet Age Glamour

My friend Lisa over at PostGrammaticStress wrote a cracking article back in March about how modern travel has lost its glamour. That, combined with some recent thinking about traveling with kids got me thinking about what a big deal airplane travel was as recently (ahem) as when I was a child.

My dad flew on commercial passenger flights in the 1950s, and he still has vivid memories of stewardesses in starched uniforms standing at the bottom of the steps to the plane, bidding my dad & grandfather a warm welcome. He remembers the natty little suit that he wore, and the pocket square his dad sported.




Things hadn't changed much by the time he was shepherding his own children onto an airplane. Much planning went into our 'airplane clothes' - they weren't our very best party threads, but needed to be spiffy nonetheless. The type of outfit my grandmother would call 'second best.' Usually for me that meant a smocked sundress in the summer, and a pinafore sort of dress in the winter. Even the shoes (especially the shoes!) needed to be spotless: rub a little Vaseline on the patent leather to get it gleaming, dig out the cordovan polish to buff up the boys' oxfords. Even in the summer, I remember my dad polishing my white Stride Rite sandals to hide the sandy scuffs.

It gave the whole adventure a sense of importance that makes a huge impression on a small person. As if the pilot and the stewardesses were foreign dignitaries, and we surely wouldn't want to embarrass ourselves in front of them by wearing stained t-shirts or dirty sneakers.  (On a somewhat unrelated note, if you have any interest in checking out insane pictures of stewardesses back in the day, click here.  I will say only this:  hotpants, and laceup knee high boots.)




These days, as Lisa points out, when you walk the concourse of any major airport, you will see miles and miles worth of stretchy Juicy-knockoff tracksuits, all varieties of sports shoes, acres of cottony stretch fabric.  Even the most glamorous celebrities don't often go for much beyond the jeans-tucked-into-boots-with-slouchy-hat configuration. Exhibit A:




It speaks to the whole 'dressing down' of everything - we don't have dining rooms anymore, we have great rooms.  We don't register for fancy china anymore, we just use the everyday stuff.  Men don't wear hats, women don't wear gloves, kids wear flip flops to church.   The kid's stores that sell dresses, flannel pants and kid-sized neckties are few and far between, and let me just say that the retail image of a 'dressed up kid' has more to do with Jon Benet & beauty pageants than with wearing your Sunday Best to the meetin' house. 

This isn't a rant, not really.  More like a wistful yearning for the days when Adventure was capitalized,  and made special with its own uniform.

12 comments:

stratos said...

I do have a pair of leather Mary Janes...actually make that three, in various heel heights: classy never goes out of style. Sadly, airplane travel is not what it used to be.

Cheryl said...

So funny. When I worked in Florida and would occasionally go in the office after a flight, the department's office manager would always look shocked at my ripped jeans. I'm all "who would get dressed up to go on an airplane?" I mean, you have to sit scrunched up on a dirty seat for hours, to say nothing of schlepping through terminals, etc.
I guess I know now! lol

Lisa said...

Thanks for linking to my blog, as neglected as it has been lately!

Travel chic is now ingrained in me. I will, hopefully until the day I die, plan out one of my best outfits for the day I travel. The most distressing thing about the safety information is the idea of jettisoning my shoes if I ever have to go down that inflatable slide!

Life Down Under said...

Ah, we still have a log book from back in the day when you could go to the cockpit and meet the pilots and look at all the equipment! Lorraine

Julia @ Hooked on Houses said...

So true! I've seen people who look like they're in their PJs--and carrying their pillows with them--on planes. I'm all for comfort, but I think it would've been fun to travel back when it was a little more glamorous!

French for a While said...

What I really want to do is wear a suit to baseball games. Is that so wrong?

kirsten said...

In fact, you MUST wear suits to baseball games. The world of civility must make a stand!

However, you may want to move to Minnesota to do so - Baltimore (or DC) and formal wear during baseball season might be a lethal combo...

Wendy said...

Awesome stewardess pictures - I particularly like the Cossacks, the skirts so short they had to wear hotpants under them, and all the itty-bitty hats worn jauntily just over the right eyebrow.

kirsten said...

I KNOW Wendy!! I mean, you can barely call it clothing! More like 'generous undergarments'! No wonder there was much moaning in the comments on that post from older gentlemen pining for the way things used to be... ;)

Amanda said...

The high point in my travel dressing was the time I wore a dress and heels to the airport in the hopes of looking decent enough to get bumped up to first or business class. It didn't work, and I changed before the flight ever even took off.

The low point was probably my second journey to Newbold, when I wore about 4 outfits layered on top of one another so that I could fit more into my suitcases. That was a toasty trip.

HOWEVER, I can at least say that, toasty as it was, I certainly did not sport big ol' SWEAT PATCHES as Ms. Diaz appears to be displaying in the unfortunate photos you posted of her. That's almost as bad as the infamous photo of Julia Roberts's hairy pits...

Oh no, wait, I just thought of an even lower "Personal Worst" in flight attire: last Christmas I slunk into Atlanta airport covered in at least 4 layers of baby vomit thanks to a sick-at-regular-intervals-for-the-last-4-hours-of-the-flight Scarlett. Despite my forward planning--THREE changes of clothes for her and a spare top for myself--I still managed to repel everyone I met in the whole of Charlie Brown International.

On the upside, they didn't tarry over my passport very long in customs that time...

L-A said...

I daily mourn the sad demise of dressing up - or at least uppish. Air travel is one example, church is another. I think Oliver is the only boy his age who wears - nay, owns - a suit jacket and tie in our assembly. Where else can I dress him up, though? Sadly, I live in an especially casual region, where even businessmen don collared t-shirts to work. I used to roll my eyes at my grandma because she came from a generation that would dress up to go "to town" (translate: the mall, or any shopping excursion). Now I see how that would be nice.

Clare said...

That comment about people in PJs with pillows completely cracks me up. I can't get over that when I see it in the airport!

I grew up flying internationally several times a year (because of all the crazy places we lived). I remember the whole smoking "section" on planes and what a joke it was because all the air was recycled throughout the plane. And, yes, we definitely dressed up for flying. It was a big deal!

These days my dad flies internationally about once a month and he always brings back the little toiletry bags that you get on international flights. I love them. They bring back memories of how glamourous I used to think air travel was.

Currently domestic flights are not much more than bus travel in the air! No food, even!

I used to love the meals, I'm not kidding. Something about peeling back that foil to reveal your choice of meat - chicken or beef, of course - and wondering if you'd been given the right one. Poking at the dessert mass, hoping that it tastes better than it looks. Even though it sounds gross I really loved it. There was something so non-normal about it. The idea of eating while flying high high high about the rest of your life.

I do appreciate Southwest and the funny songs and sarcasm about whether the plane will land properly or not. But it definitely isn't glamorous. I miss fancy-pants flying.

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