{"id":752494,"date":"2025-11-27T16:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T13:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=752494"},"modified":"2025-11-27T16:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T13:18:11","slug":"am-i-too-plain-for-the-plane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=752494","title":{"rendered":"Am I Too Plain for the Plane?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Opinion<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Am I Too Plain for the Plane?<\/h1>\n
By <\/span>Raven Smith<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

November 27, 2025<\/p>\n

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    Photographed by Arthur Elgort,\u00a0Vogue<\/em>, June 1995<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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    We\u2019re walking in the air. \u2019Tis the season of interstate, mallow-topped, turkey-stuffed travel, and the U.S. transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, has launched a \u201ccivility campaign\u201d demanding that all of us flying for the holidays (and beyond) respect \u201cthe dignity of air travel.\u201d Alongside images of mid-century air commuters in pillbox hats, the video contains one of the best montages of modern-day discourteous behavior since they took Jerry Springer off the air\u2014a wretchedly captivating cacophony of swearing, spitting, and scrapping. Duffy\u2019s bugbears include the aforementioned fisticuffs, a lack of pleases and thank yous for staff, and the reluctance of current passengers to help the aged, the infirm, and the pregnant. (The jury\u2019s still out on whether saying \u201cquiet, piggy\u201d to a journalist on Air Force One meets his civility criteria. Ahem.)<\/p>\n

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    I can\u2019t help thinking about the myriad plane etiquette infractions that didn\u2019t<\/em> make his hit list. Bare feet\u2014in any context outside of a beach, really\u2014are a major violation, as is applause on safe landing. Reclining your chair on flights under three hours is just plain rude. A neck pillow always makes you look like a loser: pay your way to the lie-down part of the plane, or stay awake for the ride. It\u2019s worth saying here that the person in the middle seat gets both armrests\u2014no questions, no notes.<\/p>\n

    Standing on business over on Fox, travel tyke Duffy also suggested we \u201cmaybe go back to an era where we didn\u2019t wear our pajamas to the airport,\u201d encouraging us to strut the tarmac runway as if it were a fashion one. Personally, I think we deserve the comfort that only jersey provides: I\u2019m all for wearing whatever you want, whatever the situation. The rules of appropriate attire, of fashion itself, are made to be\u2026 if not broken, then adapted<\/em> to modern living. We can easily get stuck in a judgmental cycle of what\u2019s appropriate to wear\u2014what\u2019s too plain for the plane, too quirk for work, too tarty for the party. So wear white after Labor Day. Wear pajamas on the flight. Dress for the seat you paid for.<\/p>\n

    At the same time, I keep reminiscing about a time when air-flight meant something<\/em>. I know there\u2019s a trend for raw-dogging your flight like an airborne caveman, but a more classic way of taking to the skies still appeals to me. Take us back to a time of un-cellophaned sandwiches cut into triangles, of fedora-clad mad men, of a little ashtray in your armrest, all of us mile-highnesses dressed in our best. I don\u2019t really want to see the stewards in Skims, the pilot in Juicy Couture.<\/p>\n

    Obviously with Trump\u2019s campaign, there\u2019s a glaring push, as ever, towards conservative values and a romanticized vision of a bygone era. Of suitcase-d husbands, of tiny-framed trad wives, of natural blondes and their \u201cgreat genes.\u201d I\u2019m not saying we should all be brawling on the Boeings, but perhaps we should<\/em> take a beat to question the government\u2019s motives for encouraging greater courtesy on board. There\u2019s this faint aroma around the video. It smells of a society where we all know our place and behave\u2014of compliance, of obedience, of not challenging the status quo. The Trump administration is taking extreme measures to try and stop active protest, retaliation, reprisal, and it\u2019s seeping in relatively un<\/em>-extremely at ground level.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    Though maybe I\u2019m reaching by talking of it as a symptom of systemic societal control. Saying thanks for my Sprite doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m living inside 1984.<\/em> I\u2019m going to just say thanks for my Sprite and be a quiet piggy in my seat. And most importantly? Even if these are the first throes of a more controlling era, people keeping their feet in their shoes on the plane is something we can all give thanks for this holiday season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

    Source URL: http:\/\/vogue.com\/article\/am-i-too-plain-for-the-plane<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Opinion Am I Too Plain for the Plane? By Raven Smith November 27, 2025 Photographed by Arthur Elgort,\u00a0Vogue, June 1995 We\u2019re walking in the air. \u2019Tis the season of interstate, mallow-topped, turkey-stuffed travel, and the U.S. transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, has launched a \u201ccivility campaign\u201d demanding that all of us flying for the holidays (and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":752495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-752494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-vogue-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=752494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/752495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=752494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=752494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=752494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}