The first ever major airline to allow women cabin crew to NOT wear make-up, Virgin Atlantic announced that it is relaxing some of the more restrictive guidelines on how women crew should dress and groom themselves. The make-up-not-compulsory move is being seen as a welcome step by female employees of airlines who often feel that they deal with inequalities in the work place based on gender stereotypes and unfair beauty standards.
“Not only do the new guidelines offer an increased level of comfort, they also provide our team with more choice on how they want to express themselves at work,” Virgin Atalntic’s spokesperson said. “Female cabin crew are no longer required to wear any make-up, if they so choose. They are however, still very welcome to wear any of our existing palette of make-up (including lipstick and foundations) set out in Virgin Atlantic’s guidelines.”
The freedom from heavy make-up or make-up of any kind would probably save several minutes in front of the mirror at unearthly hours in the morning. What more, the airline has also relaxed the earlier skirts-preferred policy, with trousers being given to cabin crew as part of their uniform sets, without them having to specially order them.
And while Virgin Airline cabin crew are now no longer required to wear make-up, if they do choose to wear any, they are advised to stick to the colour palette of red lipstick identified by the airlines as in keeping with their brand.
Cosomopolitan had published a list of all the grooming requirements that cabin crew have had to adhere to across airlines such as:
1. “Make-up should be freshened as necessary, but never in view of the customer.” —American Airlines
2. “Don’t wear accessories that clash with your uniform.” —JetBlue
The perfectly groomed airhostess is still very much the norm in Indian commercial aviation with tuturiols online on how to achieve that ‘ airhostess look’ when going for an interview with an airline.
And article in Vox explains how cabin crew were initially mostly male but then soon became out numberd by female staff in a bid to cater to an overwhelmingly large male passenger population. The idea was that the female crew should be appealing and pleasing in appearance, an old fashioned notion that airlines the world over will need to start addressing.
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