Rear view of airline hostess

Quantas ground staff

Honolulu 1964

In the early days of flying the airlines portrayed flying as something that was glamorous and exciting, and airline hostesses were invariably young and glamorous.  They were issued with uniforms which invariably included girdles, and were subjected to regular inspections which usually involved checking to see that they were wearing their girdles.

The lady on the right in this photo was a member of Qantas ground staff at Honolulu, in 1964, but was almost certainly wearing the standard Qantas hostesses uniform.  She was clearly wearing some form of girdle, and her skirt was at least one size too small, so that it displayed every detail of her underwear. 

This would not have been considered quite proper by the fashion gurus of the day, whose dictum was that your skirt should fit as closely as possible, without showing any sign of being stretched at any point, but this was probably a deliberate management ploy to give a slightly risque image, to fuel male fantasies that hostesses could be regarded as flying mistresses.

However the era of glamorous hostesses was rapidly drawing to a close, at least in the States, where the rise of feminism, and all the other isms, made it less acceptable to choose hostesses on the basis of their appearance, and much harder to fire them when they grew too old, or too fat.

 

 

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