From ‘Scoot or Star Trek?’ 24 June 2012, article by Cheryl Faith Wee, Sunday Times
Tennis outfit, Star Trek uniform or Yves Saint Laurent couture? New budget airline Scoot’s cabin crew attire has caught some people’s attention – but not always in a good way. While parent company Singapore Airlines has seen its fortunes soar, thanks in part to the iconic sarong kebaya worn by its stewardesses, Scoot’s sporty, stretchy sheath has drawn criticism from some passengers.
Mr Jourdan Ng, 29, who works in the finance industry, took a Scoot flight to Sydney two weeks ago. He says the black and yellow body-skimming V-neck dress accentuates curves, but ‘for quite a lot of the stewardesses, it is not very flattering’. ‘The sporty material of the dress makes them look like they had just finished a game of tennis before coming on board,’ he adds. ‘It might be a bit too casual.’
…Local corporate design and production house Esta designed the uniforms for the budget carrier, which started operating flights earlier this month. Male cabin crew wear polo T-shirts with midnight-blue jeans. Esta creative director Esther Tay, 58, says the dress was inspired by current fashion silhouettes and took about a month to design. Its curved, contouring panels are meant to be understated yet chic and stylish.
Similarly, fresh graduate Christine Song, 23, who is contemplating booking a Scoot flight to Australia later this year, says the design ‘does not have that professional uniform feel and is just like a formal work dress’.
… Keith Png of clothing boutique Hide & Seek, who designs his own labels Koops and Keith Png Bespoke, likens the Scoot uniform to an evening dress from the Yves Saint Laurent 1966 Autumn-Winter collection – a long couture dress in navy-blue wool, encrusted with a pink silhouette that resembles a woman’s arched body. Png, 34, says: ‘Scoot’s uniform resembles this signature dress and I like it.’
As ‘iconic’ and timeless as SIA’s uniform is, it’s easy to forget that the sarong kebaya, and even the stewardesses’ slippers, have also been criticised in the past for lacking functionality and professionalism. Ditch the stifling elegance for something more ‘casual’ and you get passengers complaining that they were suited up at World of Sports. If I needed a flight attendant to rush to my aid on a plane, I’d probably have a higher chance of survival if my rescuer wore something ‘tennis-friendly’ rather than tiptoe gingerly to my seat in a shrink-wrap kebaya. If I were held hostage by a terrorist, it would also be comforting to know that somewhere in the back someone is whispering orders to ‘Set Phasers On Stun’.
Wimble-scoot
Personally, I think the female dress has its own kooky, adventurous style which fits the whimsy way the budget airline is named, despite making the ladies look like one of Marvel’s original Avengers, the WASP. The male top and dark pants however, as flaunted previously a few months back when the uniform was first launched, made them look like flight technicians rather than flight stewards, or like ground crew who load up baggage instead of cabin crew. Even the waiters at Crystal Jade dress better than this. Taking the plunge from SIA’s suit and tie to T-shirt is stretching the dress code from ‘casual’ to ‘laidback slacker’. Not sure if ESTA had changed the design to the current ‘polo-T’ since then, but they should at least consider making them a sleeker, tighter-fit if you want men to command greater presence like Jean-Luc Picard instead of being mistaken for ball-boy stowaways.
Marvel’s own Tinkerbell
Koops’ Keith Png, on the other hand, summons YSL retro stylings, comparing the female dress to something more glamorous befitting of a catwalk. Such arty affection for something as mundane as a budget airline uniform could also explain the similarity in the playful tones between his fashion label Koops and Scoot. Here, there’s no ‘pink silhouette’ of an arched female anatomy, just a stripe of yellow that mimics the markings of winged stinging insects rather than high fashion. More ‘cartoon’ than ‘couture’, rather.
Yes, Scoot Lives
Filed under: 2012, Dress sense, Singapore Airlines Tagged: | bad dress sense, budget airlines, dress sense, SIA, Singapore Airlines, stewardess
