Flight Attendant Fashion Gets an Upgrade

By Jamie Beckman
May 5, 2015
Vintage flight attendant uniforms
Delta Air Lines
Runway to jetway! Zac Posen's designs will bring "modern American glamour" to the skies, Delta says. We've got all the details AND a look back at Delta fashions past and present.

Fly with style! Delta Air Lines has partnered with fashion designer Zac Posen, who will design uniforms for flight attendants and airport customer service agents, and advise on uniforms for Delta’s ramp and ground support agents. His structured mermaid-style ball gowns are popular on the red carpet, but we non-celebs can shop the more affordable ZAC Zac Posen line (from $195, shopbop.com) and Truly Zac Posen wedding dresses for David's Bridal (from $500). The new Delta looks will hit jet bridges in early 2018. 

What will the uniforms look like? It's up in the air. First, Posen and his team will interview Delta employees about what they want and need in a uniform. Then comes the design process. Says Delta: "Posen's brand of modern American glamour pairs well with Delta's brand attributes, and he will be personally engaged throughout the multi-year project."

Airlines are no stranger to collaborations with fashion designers: Emilio Pucci put his famous prints on Braniff International Airways stewardesses in 1966, complete with an astronaut-like plastic bubble helmet to protect their hairstyles from inclement weather. Just last year, Vivienne Westwood unveiled her vibrant red collection for Virgin Atlantic. Other partnerships didn't quite get off the ground, like Cynthia Rowley for United Airlines, nixed in 2011, post–Continental merger.

Delta hasn't paired with a designer since mid-2006, when Richard Tyler released the uniform that the airline's flight attendants wear now. Geek out with us over our favorite pics of Delta's uniforms from the 1940s to now, below. Things get really good around 1968...

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10 of the Coolest (and Weirdest!) New Travel Apps for the Apple Watch

The Apple Watch is nothing if not global. The $349-plus gadget is officially available today, but only in high-end boutiques in Paris, London, Tokyo, L.A., and Berlin. (Unless you're Beyoncé.) If you haven't pre-ordered one and won't find yourself shopping abroad anytime soon, you can order the Apple Watch online. Buying one is a financial commitment, not to mention a leap of faith in the watch's usefulness—you still need an iPhone to work the thing—but travel is one of the arenas that critics say holds the greatest potential for a wearable. A New York Times tech columnist used it to pay for taxis in New York City and show his boarding pass before getting on a flight, and reported back: "When these encounters worked, they were magical, like having a secret key to unlock the world right on my arm." While you wait for your gilded precious to arrive, here are 10 of the buzziest (and strangest) travel apps available for download at the Apple Watch's App Store, beyond the ones we mentioned last month: 1. BOOKING.COM  One touch is all it takes to book a stay directly on Booking.com's Booking Now app, available in 15 languages: "Through the use of Apple’s new pressure-sensitive ‘force touch’ technology, spontaneous travelers are now able to choose and book the nearest relevant hotel in one simple gesture" (free). 2. TRAILS  Using the Trails app, outdoor enthusiasts can access topographical maps offline and record their activity stats, such as "altitude, ascent/descent, speed, pace, and duration." The watch lets you "start and stop recordings straight from your wrist" (free app, Trails Pro subscription starts at $1.99 for three months).  3. HOTELTONIGHT  If you're already a HotelTonight convert, you're going to love the watch version: Users can book a hotel room "in seconds" with the expected sleek HT interface, which shows hotels nearby in categories like "luxe," "hip," and "standard," plus Bonus Rates, for discounts on rooms after 3 p.m. (free). 4. SICKWEATHER  Hypochondriacs, this one's for you. Replete with a 20-second hand-washing timer, Sickweather's app "provides the user a relative threat index of contagious illness in their immediate area" and alerts you when you've entered a Sick Zone: "areas where illnesses have been recently reported" (free). 5. VIATOR  The Viator Tours & Activities app beams from your iPhone to your watch, with your voucher's bar code, so "at the flick of your wrist and a tap of your watch, you can access your bookings and vouchers, getting you through the turnstile, the kiosk or lines in no time" (free). 6. AIRWAY APPS  In addition to the watch's launch partner American Airlines, other airlines have retooled their apps for the watch too (Delta, JetBlue, and Air France among them). British Airways recently announced you can use the app as a boarding pass. Plus, "a quick swipe of the 'glance' screen...will display a detailed summary of the customer’s next flight including the flight number, the flight status, a countdown to departure time and the weather at the destination" (free). 7. ZOLA  Can't wait to see which honeymoon wish-list items or couple-rrific "experiences" your wedding guests bought you? (Think: round-trip honeymoon airfare or an "intimate wine-tasting tour.") Zola's watch app sends notifications that "alert you when you receive a new gift off your Zola wedding registry as it happens." Surprises are so overrated (free). 8. HOTWIRE  Along with rental car–pickup notifications, hotel check-in alerts, and itinerary info from the Hotwire Hotels & Car Rentals app, "gas-up alerts" pop up on the watch "one hour before car drop-off time" (free). 9. IHG TRANSLATOR  As though you were a globe-trotting Dick Tracy, the IHG Translator app will decipher languages from Castilian Spanish to Thai: "By speaking directly into the watch, or selecting from a range of pre-loaded common phrases, travelers will be able to translate from English into 13 different languages, in real-time, meaning the app will cover the nine initial launch countries for Apple Watch" (free). 10. BOAT BEACON  "See and be seen on your boat"! With this ship-plotting app, Boat Beacon app wearers can "get CPA alarms, monitor MOB position and check your navigation and compass live directly on your Apple Watch from anywhere on your boat. Navigation, Compass, AIS, Race Timer, and Night Mode/Light watch screens provided." Catch you on the water ($9.99).

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Hot Stuff! Spice Up Your Food With This Cool New Keychain You Can Take Anywhere

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Would You Pay $270 for a "Smart" Suitcase?

Is the Bluesmart carry-on suitcase the luggage of the future? It certainly could be.  Connect the polycarbonate carry-on to your smartphone, fire up the Bluesmart app, and watch in amazement as the suitcase locks itself at your command, measures its own weight when you pull up on the handle, tracks its own location, alerts you when it's too far away from you (pesky smart-suitcase thieves!), and charges two of your e-devices at a time via a built-in "super-powerful" replaceable battery. There's even a nifty outer pocket perfect for slipping your laptop out easily while going through airport security. The whole thing weighs in at a reasonable 8.5 pounds. So what's the catch? Obviously, the $270 price tag—plus $20–$100 for shipping—isn't cheap. But the suitcase also isn't exactly finished: The carry-on is still in protoype stage, but it's raised more than 27 times its initial Indiegogo crowd-funding goal of $50,000, which is both promising and indicative that travelers are very enthusiastic about making jetsetting less of a hassle. If all goes according to plan, the company estimates the suitcases will be delivered by next August; we hear two of the founders have moved to China to oversee production during the next few months. Still interested? To offset the price, you can also use a Bluesmart referral link to get a $20 refund for you and every friend of yours who pre-orders one—rack up multiple orders for a totally free suitcase. (Downside: Your buddies will place the blame squarely on you if the product is a dud.) Will the Bluesmart deliver on all of its promises? Maybe. The creators are already owning up to the possibility of delays with engineering and software development—the app tracks travel data, like countries visited, in addition to controlling the suitcase. Plus, as Engadget emphasizes, all crowd-funded inventions run the risk of never happening.  Skepticism aside, let's suspend our disbelief and assume it will work and will be widely adopted. Losing your luggage forever might never happen again, thanks to GPS tracking from other travelers' Bluesmart apps. And if you can reliably weigh your suitcase in advance, you'll avoid fees—some airlines have weight limits for carry-ons. (Exceed 35 pounds on Frontier Airlines, for example, and you'll have to pay 50 bucks to gate-check your bag.) If you intend to check Bluesmart, the scale will tell you whether you can stuff that last bottle of Loire Valley pinot noir into your bag without paying Air France $100 (not that we're bitter!). Regarding the strong battery: Let's not forget the non-monetary value of not having to sit on dirty airport carpeting and fight other passengers for the last wall outlet to charge your phone. Conclusion? Know that if you pony up the cash, you're investing in a dream. But what a dream it is. Until your Bluesmart arrives, use our favorite tips to track your bag: • Before you leave the house, take a snapshot of your suitcase with your phone. If your bag does get lost, showing the airline a picture will go much further toward retrieving it than describing it verbally.  • Buy your own portable luggage scale, like the $30 Heys America xScale Touch. • Get to the airport early. If you check a bag within 30 minutes of your departure time, it may not make it onto the plane. • ID your bag with your contact information using one of those little paper tags the airlines gives you, plus your own luggage tag, and place an ID card in one of the outside pockets too. Hey, it's better to be safe than sorry.