Indulge me.................Please?

[petek]

Yes venus you're never too old now.. I've been on some flights with Grandmas, it wasn't one of Charlies though. The funniest was a short hop out of Toronto a couple of years ago on some small commuter type plane about the size of a bus, had propellers but was new. The only attendant was this guy who was as big as William the Fridge Perry, he was wider than the aisle.

 

[appnut]

Charlie, I will be more than happy to ask her for you. Can't refuse a handsome, sexy man as you.

 

[whirlcool]

Northworst anyone?

Watch it, that's who I fly for!

Right now, with the company being in BK and us pilots going beserk with the "NewCo" company trying to start up, these days certainly aren't the best for Northworst!

All you need to add to your collection is the United F/A outfit from the late 60's, solid blue or red with white band around the edges.

My Dad was with Braniff, I certainly do remember the Pucci outfits. Personally, my favourite was the Halston uniforms from the late 70's. All employees sported the Halston look, even the pilots. A dark brown jacket with white shirt and champagne colored accessories. Super sharp!
From what I understand there is a website that a uniform collector has set up, it is quite extensive from what I understand. It is done by a long time KLM F/A.

http://www.itravelnet.com/transport/air/airlineuniforms.html

 

[air-waycharlie]

Braniff uniforms

I will post the whole series of the Braniff Pucci uniforms later as I have them all. They were really something. I also have the the Halston collection which I will post as well. Allen, it is really interesting that you have come from an airline family and continued in the "family business". I pklan to email you soon in response to yours. When I first started flying, my roommate was with Southern and I'm sure you know what happened there!

I've been trying to find the United Jean Louis uniform that you described for years. It has the "Keppie" hat and the look was great and made United stand out at the time.

For the interested, the web site that you have the link to, it owned by Cliff Musqiet, the KLM flight attendant. He has been with KLM close to 20 years and has one of the most extensive collections in the world. It makes mine look like chicken feed. He is also a friend and has purchased/traded many uniforms with or from me. Please do check out his site.

 

[whirlcool]

I remember when

Braniff first came out with the Pucci uniforms, it was part of the "End of the plain plane" campaign. My Dad told me that at first all the crews thought they'd get laughed at with the "new look" as no airline had tried anything like that before. Much to their amazment they were soon to be the envy of the airline industry.
Has anyone ever seen Braniff's "Terminal Of The Future" at DAL Love Field (1968-73)? It also was something else.
My sister spent 8 years with TWA (1979-87) with TWA as a F/A. She quit when she was pregnant with her first kid. But she hadn't planned on going back, she said she was bored with it.
So yes, airline work did run in our family.

 

[gansky1]

Wow! Charlie, you have quite a large collection of these cool uniforms! It's nice to know the other things that people collect, you never know what we'll find at the estate sales tomorrow!

 

[tlee618]

Charlie I had no idea that your collect of stewardess outfits was so huge!! I just love all the bright colors. It was fun reading your postings and remembering all the old airlines. It is hard to believe that most of them are gone today. Thanks for sharing. Terry

 

[brettsomers]

Very Nice Charlie

david, new member here. i admire your hoover collection, i have a few of the same machines you have. have you ever thought of getting some women mannequins, perhaps on ebay, to display your collection? those are lovely uniforms.

 

[scott55405]

I don't remember or recognize half those airlines, but I sure do like your collection and remember when you air hostesses dressed in this fashion. ;-)

I do remember Western, as they were big in the Twin Cities, and it was upon them that I took my first flight in 1969. I couldn't even tell you what kind of plane it was. It was fairly modern and had 3 seats on each side of the aisle. The engines had no propellers (some still did at that time). This was before they were bought out by Northwest ORIENT Airlines, of course. ;-) Remember Pete, you get 3 feet for your two legs, on Western Airlines!

I seem to recall one called "Southern" that I think I took once, probably in the late 1970s. Does that sound right? "North Central" was another I seem to remember a lot of as a child.

 

[tolivac]

Air-Way-Charlie:Interesting collection of airline uniforms!
In older times I remember Western Airlines-Rode on them from Rapid city S.dak to the twin cities to catch other flights.I LOVED riding Western--At the time they used 4 engine Lockheed Electras-now THAT was an airplane-was exciting when the engines were started and reved up in turn.then the flight--YOU COULD SIT IN ANY CHAIR YOU WANT!!I changed places a lot to get the views.Many times the pilot would circle the "Badlands" outside of Rapid-was beautiful!They didn't mind when riders crowded on one side to get the view.And they served GOOD food on those trips.these were "milk run" or "bus run flights-you got on or off at your "stop"places like Aberdeen,Watertown,Pierre,Soux Falls.Many people didn't like these flights-I LOVED them-and miss them so much.Made flying FUN instead of the droll and boring thing its now.Later they replaced the Electras with boing 737's-but the flights were still fun-and the looks at the Badlands.also loved the "Indian" logo on the nose of the plane.I had ridden many flights into and out of Rapid City-but these were my favorites.

 

[air-waycharlie]

More Braniff

Here is the whole BN uniform collection and keep in mind this is what I have saved after giving/selling a lot of it off. Space is a premimum.

This first group is Pucci I through Pucci VI. To the far left is the "Puccino" a serving garment that goes with the Air-Strip at the beginning of this thread. Then is Pucci II and III done in pinks and cranberrys. Note the silver metalic serving garment--also came in metalic pink and blue. Then Pucci IV, V, and VI when the blues and greens were used. There were so many items and combinations it is beyond imagination.

They even had purses, gloves, umbrellas, luggage, hats, etc. all done by Pucci in the colors you see here. The scarves are a work of air in and of themselves.

 

[air-waycharlie]

Pucci I & II

A closer look.

 

[air-waycharlie]

Pucci III, IV & V

The change to the blues and greens in the famous Pucci patterns.

 

[air-waycharlie]

Braniff Wings

The gold dove could be worn as a necklace as well as pinned to the uniforms.

 

[air-waycharlie]

Halston arrives

The Halston uniforms debuted in the fall of 1977. Quite a change. Very classic and there were many more pieces than I have pictured here. Beautiful lutra suede topcoats were issued with Hartmann luggage. (No wonder they were first in bankruptcy)

 

[air-waycharlie]

Delta by request

This is the only Delta uniform I have. It is from the mid 1980's and already the monocromatic blue is starting. Yawn.

Scott,
Just a note, Western was purchased by Delta in 1986. Northwest purchased Republic around that time. Republic was a merger of Southern Airways of Atlanta, North Central Airlines of Detroit, and Hughes AirWest of San Francisco.

 

[scott55405]

Thanks Charlie! It would figure I would mix something up. At least I know now that there was a Southern! LOL I didn't realize Western had survived that long. My father always listened to one of those old line AM radio stations and they and Northwest (Orient) Airlines were advertised heavily on it in the 70s.

Thanks for the great additional pictures!

 

[kevinpreston4]

Speaking of airlines

When I was younger the airline industry fascinated me. I used to get the paper airline schedules during the summer, and as planes went overhead I would try to figure out what flight number they were. I was close enough to the planes that with binoculars, it was great fun to finally figure out the airline.

The colors of the airlines were interesting, and it's obvious it carried over to all elements of design, including outfits. I love the colors of planes like what Braniff would do. Does anyone remember in the 60s that Braniff would have, for example, an all-yellow plane, and you would see it parked next to an all-orange one? Very cool.

I was on a very early 747 flight(about 1971) when United used one on a relatively short flight from Denver to Chicago. It was so fun to be on that plane going, but coming back on a standard 727 seemed so small.

I flew a number of planes as a kid going with my parents to visit relatives. I remember when they still had DC-8s, and I even flew on a Convair 880. Those went out many years ago. Even at the time my mom had never heard of that plane, and asked my dad "is this one safe?"

Here are some airlines for the memory:

Hughes Airwest
PSA
Piedmont
TWA
Braniff
Eastern
National Airlines
Pan Am
Western

 

[air-waycharlie]

More for the list

Great post Kevin. Here are a few more for the list:

Alaska
Ozark
Allegheny
Frontier (the original)
Northeast
Lake Central
Mohawk
Empire
Southern
Air Florida
Midway
Capital--scheduled carrier, merged into UA
Capitol--started as supplemental carrier became scheduled
Air Cal
Bonaza
Texas International

Then after de-reg a ton of them came and went. Too many to start listing!

 

[whirlcool]

And let's not forget North Central..

that's who I started out with. They were the largest of the "regional" carriers. Their logo was a mallard duck flying across the sun or the moon, whichever point of view you wanted to take.

http://www.hermantheduck.org

 

[frigilux]

oh.my.freaking.GOD.

I...I'm not even sure what to say about your collection. It is perhaps the most unique thing I've ever seen. If I composed a list of 1,000,000,000 ideas for collections, I dare say 'stewardess uniforms' would never enter my mind.

It's really pretty cool, airway-charlie. I'm just a little bit stunned, is all.

I once dropped acid on a flight in 1975, and if the stewardess had approached me in a uniform like the one in pic #1, you'd have had to pull me off the ceiling!

 

[whirlcool]

North Central Airlines was a MSP based company, not Detroit. They had the green concourse at MSP.

 

[tolivac]

Also another flights I took when I lived in Rapid City-Was North Central-They had the "Duck" logo on the tails of their Conviar 580's- twin engine prop plane-in those days-like Western you could sit anywhere on the plane-and those too were "milk run" flights-made about the same stops as Western.they were good and fun to ride.It seemed that the airline flights in and out of the Rapid City area were the older planes-and some passengers used them as "flying pickup trucks"Remember tractor parts and yes-even a chain saw put into the overhead compartments.Can you imagine what would happen today if someone tried to bring a chain saw onto the plane?Was fun seeing what other passengers brought with them.
these flights were in the 60's and and into the early 70's.