Seattle Museum of Flight Archives - Page 2 of 2

Style in the aisle: exhibit of vintage flight attendant fashions

This should be fun:

At the end of January, Seattle’s Museum of Flight will open up the clothes closet again for a fresh new exhibit of vintage flight attendant uniforms and airline memorabilia.

‘Most of the uniforms on display in the exhibit are from the flamboyant 1960s and 1970s. The collection includes creations by Parisian designer Jean Louis, Italian designer Emilio Pucci, and Hollywood designer Oleg Cassini. Trans World Airlines, Western Airlines and Braniff International represent a few of the airlines that flew the groovy garb featured in the exhibit. Rare articles also include a 1936 United Air Lines uniform, and a 1945 Northwest Airlines ensemble accented with a mink stole.”

The Museum of Flight had a similar exhibit back in 2008 that included “stewardess” uniforms ranging from “nurse togs” from the 1930s to the fab fashions from the 1960s and 1970s. So many flight attendants who visited that first exhibit Donated memorabilia and uniforms they’d saved that the museum decided to expand and bring back the display.

Style in the Aisle will be at Seattle’s Museum of Flight (a short bus or taxi-ride runs from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport) from January 29 through May 30, 2011.

Check back soon for a slide-show featuring more fashions from the exhibit.

All photos courtesy the Museum of Flight

Museum Monday: Museum of Flight, Seattle

It’s Museum Monday here at StuckatTheAirport.com, so time to take a look at one of the 694 aviation museums around the country.

This week: a quick look at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, which has just kicked off a new exhibit about women in the aerospace industry: Chasing Horizons: Women in Aerospace.

Associated Women Pilots of Boeing Field (1933-1946). Museum of Flight collection.

The exhibit starts off with pioneer French aeronaut Élisabeth Thible, who became the first woman to fly in a balloon in 1784, and continues through aviation’s Golden Age of the 1920s and 1930s, World War II, and to today’s fighter pilots, aerobatic pilots, engineers, and astronauts.

Of course, there are plenty of other things to see here. The Museum of Flight is home to a vast collection of more than 150 rare aircraft and space vehicles.

There’s a control tower overlooking the very active Boeing Field and, in the Personal Courage wing, a display of 28 fighter aircraft. The major attraction, though, is the six-story Great Gallery where there are more than 20 full-size aircraft on display, including this Lockheed M-21 Blackbird.

See that little red dot to the left of the Blackbird? That’s my favorite museum artifact – an early flying car known as the Taylor Aerocar III:

The museum also has a Concorde on loan from British Airways and the first presidential jet plane, a specially built Boeing 707-120, which had this ‘high-tech’ conference area.

Seattle’s Museum of Flight is located just south of Seattle and not far from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. So it’s a good option for an activity during a long layover. See the Museum of Flight website for more information about exhibits, special events, hours and admission.

And let us know if you have a favorite aviation museum you’d like us to feature.