Planeclothes

Dressing for the plane: a supposedly simple task, but one I’ve never pulled off to my satisfaction. Right now, for example, despite having switched outfits three time this morning, to optimize for warmth, comfort, and pockets, I screwed up in a crucial area: socks. My sweatpants, I only now realize, to my infinite regret, are slightly cropped, leaving a good two inches of skin exposed where the sock stops and my pant leg starts. This only happens as soon as I sit down, a contingency I should have factored in.

So you’re showing a little ankle, you might say; what’s the big deal? It’s an enormous deal. Alpine climbers don’t throw on a sweatshirt and scale peaks, and nobody has any business sitting through a transatlantic flight if they haven’t thought long and hard about surviving the frigid, unpredictable climate of a Boeing 747. 32,000 feet above ground, when the AC breeze starts whipping, and the flight crew would rather stage an emergency evacuation than give you a blanket, you’re going to wish you’d spent less time printing out your boarding pass and more time trying on different sweaters to assess their in-cabin qualities. If possible, a few days before your departure, it’s best to create a room at home with conditions that simulate cabin temperatures, with your partner alternately blowing a hairdryer on you and shoving you in front of an open refrigerator, in order to gather an accurate impression of which attire holds up best.

Of all peoples, the Germans are perhaps best prepared to take to the skies because of their preternatural fears of catching a chill. There is even a phrase for this horror: “Es zieht,” which they say in the same tone that a victim in a horror movie would whisper, “That’s him!” and lift a shaking finger to the serial killer. “Es zieht” means, literally, ‘it drafts,’ in which “it” is an undefined menace wreaking physical discomfort. Germans are not above wearing kidney warmers, as the popular brand “kidneykaren” demonstrates, to guard against the public enemy that is a stray draft. (Mysteriously, Germans also love nothing better than throwing the windows open in the middle of winter and shouting “Frische Luft!” with a masochist’s barmy joy.)

I’m vexed by the sock issue because it’s such an amateur error. I’ve arrived at a hard-earned philosophy of comfort over aesthetics when it comes to flight fashion, after making various forays on both sides of the spectrum. Sometime in my mid- twenties, I decided that sneakers and sweats were an undignified mode of travel, and were keeping me in an adolescent phase (I decided not to consider other factors that might be contributing to said phase). For a year or two in the mid-oughts, I traveled like a slightly scruffy businesswoman. These eighteen months were as ill-considered as any rebranding strategy that ignores the essence of the product, be it a country star who can’t go pop or a fast food chain that will never be convincingly heart healthy. Sometime after 30, I accepted my true airplane identity, which is fundamentally American in its fondness for sneakers and unapologetic sloppiness.

On my current flight from London to Charlotte, North Carolina, I’m enjoying the Southern drawl of the stewardesses and the pajama aesthetics of my fellow countrymen. The only indication that I’ve spent the last five years in Europe is my scarf, which in some corners of the US is considered elitist and anti-turtleneck. Otherwise I’m as undercover as a plainclothes detective on a street corner, chewing gum, thinking about lunch.