The myth of the sexy skies was losing altitude. The space race was basically over, and gone with it, a powerful poetic thrust. The airplane as space-age adventure was replaced by the airplane as crowded shuttle bus. The title “flight attendant,” which supplanted “stewardess” in the 1970s when men became eligible for the job, had as much glamour as gas station or bathroom attendant. Men posed another problem, too: how to design uniforms that read stylishly across gender? When Eastern put its stewards in pilot-like uniforms, passengers wondered why they were serving dinner and not flying the plane. By the end of the 80s, the vision of flight as sex metaphor was dead.
Laura Jacobs for 2wice

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