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Its 6th period throwing down Sunday, April 7th, AMC’s Mad guys has sporadically portrayed the glamour and excitement of flights therefore the apparently crazy and carefree everyday lives led by that era’s flight that is female. But, relating to a fresh guide concerning the reputation for flight stewardesses, it had been men – and some ladies – at Mad Men-like marketing agencies that invented the image associated with the sexy stewardess when you look at the beginning.
In ” The Jet Sex – Airlines Stewardesses and also the Making of an American symbol,” journalist and historian Victoria Vantoch writes that into the mid-1960s, agencies attempting to “sex up” the stuffy trustworthiness of very early airlines started by changing advertisements portraying feminine journey attendants as helpful, girl across the street types with pictures of “beguiling brand brand new stewardesses” guaranteeing coffee, tea plus much more.
Baskas: Before marketing agencies got a part of the flight industry, exactly exactly how were stewardesses portrayed and promoted?
Vantoch: into the 1940s and 1950s, the stewardess had been popularly thought being a paragon of virginity, wholesomeness and domesticity. Air companies cultivated the airline stewardess image very very carefully. She had been the consummate homemaker: a specialist at pampering guys, serving casserole and seeking pretty.
Baskas: just How did the ‘in-flight’ image of stewardesses ukrainian bride within the 1950s compare with their actual life experiences?
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Vantoch: there was clearly a huge gulf between sex ideals and real women’s everyday lives in mid-century America. The stewardess icon resolved that deep chasm between real life working women and the fantasy of the full-time happy housewife in a way. Stewardesses seemed to be these quintessential 1950s housewives, yet there have been simultaneously ambitious, separate profession ladies who traveled definately not home.”
Baskas: What took place to that wholesomeness whenever Mad guys advertising businesses got active in the 1960s?
Vantoch: marketing agencies had been attempting to make airlines appear more hip and cool, so that they would allure into the youth market that is emerging. These advertisement agency executives knew that the youth counterculture in addition to revolution that is sexual spreading across US tradition and additionally they knew it had been becoming essential to resonate with these brand new social mores.
Baskas: and exactly how did they’re going about transforming the image that is stewardess nutritious, capable and virginal into another thing?
Vantoch: To attract into the country’s brand brand new 1960s mores, these advertising agencies cultivated a hipper, sexy stewardess wearing fashionable mini-dresses and uniforms that have been additionally more revealing. The very first flight to actually produce the sexy stewardess ended up being Braniff. Marketing pioneer Mary Wells annexed the Braniff airlines marketing and rolled away a campaign called the “Air Strip,” featuring stewardesses stripping down levels of the uniforms.
Baskas: That truly would draw focus on the in-flight safety statement. exactly just What did other air companies do?
Vantoch: Other air companies used suit: flight adverts started featuring stewardesses with teased locks, lying straight straight down on airplane seats and seeking seductively during the viewer. TWA revealed paper gown uniforms due to their stewardesses, which ripped effortlessly in journey. Pan Am kept hemlines lowest longest, but ultimately they raised uniform that is stewardess as well.
Baskas: it appears as though all that sex-kitten stuff would attract guys. But women that are weren’t as people during this time period also?
Vantoch: It ended up beingn’t merely about offering airline travel to entrepreneurs; it had been about attempting to sell airline travel into the middle-class, including females, whom desired to be young, hip, and trendy.
Baskas: just exactly exactly How did the image that is sex-kitten of attendants compare for their real-life experiences?
Vantoch: genuine stewardesses failed to passively accept this image that is new was indeed expressing, protesting, and legitimately fighting intercourse discrimination at work well before the 1970s women’s movement gave a language and context due to their complaints. In reality, stewardesses won a number of the very first appropriate victories for females into the workforce and overcome the tobacco industry utilizing the ban that is first smoking cigarettes on the job.
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