This is the first of a few dispatches from our trip to Seoul . . .
There’s an old expression that goes, “I just love a man in a uniform.” I guess I’m afflicted with the sexual inverse of that, because I seem to go for women in uniforms. More specifically, stewardesses is ’60s space-age style uniforms.
Sadly, in America, the well-dressed stewardess has gone the way of the rotary phone and the baseball player who stays with one team. Now we have stewardesses – or flight attendants, to be PC – in khakis and polos, or navy blue skirts and white shirts. It’s like nurses in oversized scrubs.
But elsewhere around the globe, the stewardess as fashion icon in the sky is alive and well and ready to welcome you into the air with an inviting smile.
Air travel used to be exclusive and thrilling and glamorous. And stewardesses were the ultimate reflection of the experience. Now, flying from place to place is routine, and with all the security stuff and endless waiting around, kind of a hassle.
I was thinking about all of this as Molly and I were sitting in the departure lounge at the Atlanta Airport, waiting to board a flight to Seoul. Sitting nearby, there was a group of Korean Air stewardesses. Our stewardesses. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. They were wearing cream-colored fitted jackets and skirts, with blue stockings and blue neck scarves, tied off to the side. Their shiny black hairdos were tied in buns, across which blue ribbons described the shape of an aeronautic whoosh. They were all stunningly beautiful and poised, with perfect posture and a kind of beneficent glow around them (sorry, I told you I was a sucker for stewardesses).
Suddenly, the thought of fourteen hours on a plane didn’t seem so bad.
During the flight, the stewardesses changed outfits, swapping the skirts for slacks and the jackets for blue silk sleeveless tops. The neck scarves and ribbons remained. Aside from being so easy on the eyes, these ladies were cheerful, patient, helpful and seemed to genuinely enjoy their work. What a change from the typically cranky stews on our domestic flights, for whom a request for a second bag of honey-roasted peanuts is often an affront.
At the back of the plane, I spoke to one of the stewardesses – a Ms. Choi – for a moment, and she helped me with the pronunciation of a Korean phrase I was trying to learn. The phrase was not, “Will you marry me?”
But more about matrimonial offers in the next dispatch from the trip . . .
- Bill