The airport is a fascinatingly frustrating (or frustratingly fascinating) place.
Time ceases to exist here – you stand in a queue to get your passport stamped, and before you know it, seven hours of your life have elapsed. Decades-old lounge-glossies somehow appear more interesting than the veritable treasure trove your Instagram FYP has to offer.
And visits to the duty-free candy store feel like a delightful act of rebellion against your parents, who once had you convinced Ferrero Rochers would make you go broke. Even the stalest Burger King and overpriced lukewarm Starbucks feel infinitely more fulfilling than your average fine-dining.
My point is that every experience is amplified, each sense is heightened, and every encounter with a perfect stranger is romanticized within the confines of the airport. And why wouldn’t it be? Whether you’re rushing to the gate-check, shimmying out of your shoes at the TSA, or cozying up to the cramped legroom of your airline seat, feelings can run high when you’re flying mile-high, even if said feelings are anxiety and uncertainty.
Not to mention, there’s also something poetic about it.
There’s the adrenaline rush of making it through the terminal unscathed, the boundless anticipation of jetsetting off to some exotic, uncharted locale (probably), and most importantly, unwinding to the seedy in-flight entertainment. Of course, we’d like to look our Sunday best.
Enter – airport style.
“The Airport is My Runway”
Victoria Beckham joined Twitter on a fateful September day in 2010. Her first prosaic proclamation? “Finally!! Leaving for UK tomorrow “Airport is my runway!!!” Can’t wait for fashion week! In love and light x VB”
Now Posh Spice may have laid claims to the IP of airport attire, but the truth is, fashionistas have long mined for inspiration from their skyward sisters.
It was way back in 1919, in fact, four years after the first commercial flight between St. Petersburg and Tampa, when an uncredited Vogue writer wrote of the hottest spring hats of the time: “All the best ideas of the Wright Brothers are translated into French idiom by this large hat from Bendel, made by Suzanne Talbot, which has the swoop of an airplane hanging in the blue in its wide free lines.”
Commercial photography wasn’t as widely available, so the piece featured an illustration of said swooping headpiece! And well until the ’50s, air travel was truly a luxury, reserved for only the elite, and with the jet-set look to match, courtesy of the couture creations of Chanel, Balmain, Courrèges, Pierre Cardin, and Dior.
So influential was this period, which revolved around the event that was the flight itself, that it was dubbed The Jet Age. The look of the day was synonymous with pumps, furry stoles, and tailored suits—airplanes even served as the backdrop to the July 1957 and January 1962 issues of Vogue.
Unsurprisingly, Karl Lagerfeld’s vision for Chanel’s Spring 2016 show transformed the Grand Palais of Paris into an airport as an homage to the runway glamour of the swinging sixties!
Terminal Decline
By the ’70s, however, things had taken a decidedly casual turn. Though Mick and Bianca Jagger were still rolling up to Heathrow in matching suits and sunglasses, Brigitte Bardot’s go-to was the all-leather look, Twiggy’s was fur coats, and Jane Birkin was regularly sporting her arm candy (Serge Gainsbourg), straw baskets, and side fringes on her Paris-London flights.
And as the Golden Age of Air Travel gave way to more frequent and affordable flights, airport glamour gave way to casual comfort. As fashion historian Summer Anne Lee surmises, “There was more democratization of air travel in the ‘70s because airlines were encouraged to adopt competitive pricing.”
Flying, as a result, became less exclusive and, therefore, less aspirational.
By the ’90s – the decade, in the words of Hamish Bowles, when “the world took ownership of fashion” – the new airport uniform comprised baseball caps, jeans, and tees, all rounded out by those enormous anachronistic sunglasses to fend off the paparazzi flashbulbs. Cindy Crawford circa. 1992 in a blue suit and jumper, and Tyra Banks in denim jackets, Calvin Klein tees, and trainers from 1996, remain the perennially moodboarded staples of the time, the original blueprint of the clean girl/quiet luxury look we love (or love to hate on) today.
With the advent of reality TV, tabloids, and the online blogosphere in the 2000s, the way we consumed culture—and with that, celebrity content—went into overdrive. The Los Angeles Times even reported that TMZ had a dedicated videographer stationed at LAX seven days a week. Airport style became more than the sum of its parts—it was now business.
But how profitable was it really?
After all, this came in conjunction with the beefed-up security measures of a post-9/11 world (the “shoes-off” policy of the TSA came in 2006). “What was once about projecting status,” says Jonathan Square, assistant professor of Black Visual Culture at Parsons School of Design, “became about surviving the process. You’re not going to wear Rick Owens Kiss boots or Marc Jacobs Kiki boots; you’re going to wear something you can easily slip off and on.”
Understandably, all of it soon devolved into the sweat-set mush we see these days.
Catch Flights, Not Feelings
At the end of the day, something is humbling about the entire airport experience. You can always rely on the inevitability that your luggage is going to weigh at least 1kg over the weight limit, the in-flight air-conditioning to recreate near-arctic temperatures for the whole duration of the flight, or the airline meal to be subpar and utterly unfulfilling.
“Airports are unpleasant, and economy sucks,” says Vanessa Friedman. “If you wear a suit and a suit jacket and high-heeled shoes, you’d end up wrinkled, creased, and miserable.” An outfit that pretty much centers around an elasticated waistband doesn’t feel like the worst of crimes.
It is, in fact, looking like you have your s**t together on a flight – a fashion subterrain that’s pretty lawless these days – that has become an art form of sorts. If posting a well-manicured Instagram story, passport in hand, or curating your TSA tray before going through the scanner manages to zhuzh up the airport experience even slightly – then by all means, go ahead!
After all, there are a few great equalizers like a trip to the airport—whether you’re Pedro Pascal on the way to Cannes in an all-Bottega fit, the Olsen twins hauling $80k worth of crocodilian luggage, or yours truly in his go-to travel-friendly Canadian tuxedo. The unwavering truth that you’re going to have to take your shoes off at the gate-check is also a reassuring constant.
It reminds us that regardless of who you are, you’ll have to suffer at the airport. So, why not try to make it slightly more tolerable?
Featured image via Vogue.
