By the end of the 80s, the vision of flight as sex metaphor was dead. The president of NOW, Patricia Ireland, who was a stewardess from 1967 until 1975, won her first feminist victory when she demanded that Pan Am offer its women employees the same medical benefits as men. But there was a symbolic shift, as well. Affordable air travel had made the wide world frighteningly small. Look around today and you'd never guess at the extremes to which the stewardess uniform had stretched.
Personal style is now much more of a uniform.
You're not conscious of them anymore. The years when I did them, each airline and each country had very distinctive uniforms. Now they all look alike. Even that sleek passenger-missile, the London Concorde, undercuts its testosterone technology with flowery window curtains la Laura Ashley. In fact, airlines are currently advertising themselves as cradles of the sky, with images of attendants plumping fluffy white pillows, tucking CEOs into recliner berths.