Traveling, one of the greatest pleasures of a free life, has thankfully resumed. But with a plethora of testings, vaccinations certificates, and at-home-quarantines required for safety, the process is anything but easy. Gone for now are the days when boarding a plane was as simple as hopping on the subway.
It wasn’t like that in the ’60s either, when jet-setting was still a privileged experience. Case in point: The now-defunct Braniff Airlines, which today could be called a “boutique airline,” had its fleet of Boeing 727s painted from tail to nose in fancy shades of turquoise, lemon yellow, candy pink, and lavender. The flight attendants (they were called hostesses at the time) were dressed in minidresses and slim coats matching the colors of the airplane, with space-age clear plastic helmets worn to protect their bouffant coiffures from the terminal to the plane. The company’s CEO, the marketing genius Mary Wells, wanted to make the experience onboard as stylish and indulgent as possible. No wonder she appointed Marchese Emilio Pucci to design the stewardesses’ wardrobe. Between 1965 and 1974, he made six collections for Brainiff.
Too juicy a reference to miss, the design team worked around a ’60s-inflected slim, short silhouette for resort, a Pucci season par excellence. Traveling as a state of mind, if not yet an IRL option, inspired a series of easy pieces that can be freely layered and combined, and quickly packed for an impromptu trip to some seaside destination. Included in the offer were pleated sundresses, short shifts, and bodysuits paired with miniskirts. Bathing suits and high-waisted bikinis in sustainable lycra were given a glamorous spin, styled with chic eco-taffeta blouses or worn under cropped piumino waistcoats. As always at Pucci, prints were doing the talking: archive motifs referencing travel were reworked in gently saturated colors. Light and airy, they conveyed the youthful, breezy spirit the current Pucci incarnation seems to be about.
