Go-go boots clattered across the tarmac as a group of young women scrambled into place at Dallas’s Love Field airport. The boss wanted a photograph. “Okay, girls,” said Lamar Muse, the president of Southwest Airlines. “Y’all smile.” It was 1971, and Southwest had...
In the world of aviation, there has long been a fantasy around the female flight attendant: always dressed to impress, hair styled in beautiful chignons, edges laid, and face beat. In other words: snatched. They are the first line of hospitality welcoming passengers...
“Don’t settle for style. Succeed in substance.”—Wynton Marsalis The 1970s was a decade of sweeping social and economic change in the United States. The era of disco and bellbottom jeans also built upon laws and programs developed in the 1960s to provide increased...
We’ve heard that if you’re not from North America, people often paint Canada and the USA with the same brush. While this might be jarring to hear for some Canadians, we know it’s true. We’re from here, though, so we know that there’s MANY significant differences...
On October 26, 1958, a commercial flight changed the history of aviation: it was the first Boeing 707 that flew from New York to Paris, of the Pan Am airline. This event inaugurated a time where traveling by plane was synonymous with a glamorous life, immortalized in...
By golly am I ever glad that Major League Baseball is back… even if my team, once again, will play their home games in another country, it’s still a great feeling knowing that every night between now and (hopefully) the end of October I can sit on the couch, turn on...
The iconic Jet Age airline Pan Am needs no introduction, but the front-line people who powered its success have been less known — until now. A new book by the journalist Julia Cooke, Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am (Houghton Mifflin...
Western sports bullfighters are sometimes called “the Secret Service of bull riding” – jumping into harm’s way just as highly trained agents would to protect the leader they serve. Bullfighters similarly put life and limb on the line to protect riders who often wind...
Part retro, part modern, all with new colourful hooks and a dash of pizzazz. Uniforms are getting an update at the Canadian women's curling championship starting Friday in Calgary. The feel of the shirts is the same but they'll feature a distinct nod to yesteryear...
They're up there with double-decker buses, red phone booths and Big Ben when it comes to quintessentially British things, but the uniforms sported by Queen Elizabeth II's guards weren't designed to look aesthetically pleasing. They were devised as essential...
Today we have something very special. Give me a minute to set it up and provide some context. So: Three years ago, I ran a blog post about a 1965 catalog that had been loaned to me by Uni Watch reader Tom Jacobsen. The catalog was from a New York company called...
Hidden in a weedy patch in your backyard, or on the forest edge, lies a humble plant that is most famous for its burning sting. But did you know that stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) can also be used for making textiles? Inside the plant’s stalks are long, strong, fine...
