Sneakers, Tattoos, Pronoun Pins: How Flight Attendant Uniforms Are Changing With the Times

30.07.2024 - 13:27 / afar.com

For nearly as long as commercial air travel has been possible, flight attendants have pushed back on policies surrounding their appearance and what they have to wear. It used to be about miniskirts and hot pants; today it’s about tattoos, comfort, and gender-neutral clothing. No matter the specifics, the shifts in airline uniforms reflect shifts in culture, and if you look to the skies, you can see that change happening yet again. In recent years—and even this past month—airlines worldwide have increasingly been loosening once-strict appearance guidelines and dress code policies to become more inclusive.

In the 1960s, uniforms were about fashion, not function—like these 1960s outfits for Trans World Airlines, displayed at an exhibition at San Francisco International Airport.

Photo by Billie Cohen

In the 1950s and ’60s, when the profession was predominantly held by women and the clientele was mostly male business travelers, airlines used bright, stylish uniforms as a marketing tool. Flight attendants were often made to wear miniskirts, hot pants, and go-go boots, which weren’t practical for performing the job. Their looks were also policed. “In addition to airline requirements that they be single, childless, and younger than 32 to 35 . . . stewardesses were subject to random and demoralizing weight checks, girdle checks, makeup checks, and more,” Nell McShane Wulfhart, author of The Great Stewardess Rebellion (Doubleday; April 2022), told Afar in a previous interview.

As she explains in her book, flight attendants formed the Stewardesses for Women’s Rights union in 1972 and started to fight against the inequities.

That’s when things started to change. “Women flight attendants filed lawsuits against their employers,” says Dan Bubb, a professor and aviation history expert at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. He explains that another problem was the contrast between what male and female flight attendants were made to wear. As a result, airlines dropped the height and weight restrictions and modified uniforms to make them more practical, yet still professional, for male and female flight attendants. Still, the outfits were often gendered, with skirts and blazers for women and suits for men.

SAS is one of a few airlines that now permits tattoos to be visible.

Courtesy of Scandinavian Airlines

As of this month, for example, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) allows flight attendants and other guest-facing staff members to have visible tattoos while in uniform. The airline joins a list of other carriers that have made that policy shift, including Alaska, United, and Virgin Atlantic. In a July 1 social media post, SAS wrote that the changes, which include permission to wear sneakers, are “part of our commitment to