FLYING FASHION
This autumn winter season we mark the return of the Shearling Flying jacket which takes our thoughts back to the first woman to fly solo across the atlantic and perhaps the original ‘influencer’ of the aviator trend who not only took to the skies but also designed her own fashion label.
All Saints
In 1934, Amelia created a fashion collection known as “Amelia Earhart Fashions.” The pictures of Amelia is one of aviator goggles perched on top of a leather flying cap on her head, a scarf at her neck blowing in the wind wearing her trademark leather bomber jacket. Who would have known that she is still a major influence on fashion today.
All Saints
Amelia studied sewing as a young girl growing up in Kansas. She didn’t play with dolls like other girls did. But she did design and make beautiful clothing for her dolls. Her early career was as a social worker, not as a pilot.
She often appeared in Vogue magazine and Cosmopolitan (where she was also an editor.) So it was a natural transition for her to move to creating and designing her own fashion line. She created her line’s samples using her own sewing machine and dress form with the help of a seamstress in New York.
HM
The original Amelia Earhart clothing line included dresses, blouses, pants, suits, and hats. Eventually, the collection included 25 designs.
Amelia had some original ideas about fashion design for women and fashion merchandising.
As a social worker in Kansas her income was limited, and it seems that making her own clothing was a way for her to remain stylish and live within her means.
Dior 2019 Resort
Later, she carried this knowledge of sewing and design into her career as a pilot. This was part of the genius of Amelia Earhart; she was an excellent promoter of her own brand.
Tall, slender and beautiful, she wore clothing as fashionably as a model on a runway. As a pilot, her first foray into design was to create a jumpsuit that she could wear comfortably in the cockpit. She designed a flying suit with loose trousers, a zipper top and big pockets for the Ninety-Nines (an association of women pilots.)
Mango
Here are some of the highlights of her fashion vision
She recommended practical fabrics such as Grenfell cotton and parachute silk
The garments in her line were washable
She was the first to recommend the marketing of “separates”, so that a woman did not have to buy a suit in one size.
In the Amelia Earhart line you could purchase a jacket in one size, and a skirt in another size. She wanted to accommodate all various sizes and shapes.
Mango
Amelia was budget-conscious. Her fashions were launching in the Great Depression. She told the press her goal was to bring the beauty she’d found in aviation closer to all women at prices that didn’t reach “new altitudes.”
She added shirt tails to women’s shirts. The shirt length of the Amelia Earhart shirt was designed to be longer than shirt tails of women's shirts as at the time when a woman bent over the shirt became un-tucked.
All Saints
In spite of its initial success, however, Amelia Earhart Fashions lasted but one season. America was in the dead centre of the Great Depression, and fashion was seen as a frivolity to the potential buyers. Earhart continued to fly, finding other sources of financing, until her disappearance in 1937.However her memory of course has far from disappeared as has her influence on trends and the fashion industry today.
“They are just good lines in good material for women who lead active lives.””