Bare feet. Bad breath. Boisterous conversations and body odor. When you fly, you run the risk of a memorable experience, to say the least. And it’s not just thanks to your close proximity to other passengers. We’re all getting ruder, too. The Transportation Department reports that “since 2019, the [Federal Aviation Administration] has seen a 400% increase of in-flight outbursts—ranging from disruptive behavior to outright violence.”
Now the Transportation Department wants us to return to “the golden age of travel.” Like Smokey Bear before him, Secretary Sean Duffy is assuring the populace that only you can bring this golden age back — with a return to etiquette and smart dressing.
“Are you helping a pregnant woman or the elderly with placing their bags in the overhead bin?” Duffy asks us. “Are you dressing with respect? Are you keeping control of your children and helping them through the airport? Are you saying thank you to your flight attendants? Are you saying please and thank you in general?”
Only in America do adults need a reminder that I give to my 3-year-old every day. But while Duffy’s appeals to the magic words may seem rudimentary, they’re far from superfluous given the current state of flying. And though the Transportation Department has bigger problems to worry about, such as overburdened air traffic controllers and outdated technology, a passenger-led civility movement is also far overdue.
We can all recognize the importance of kindness, but commentators were affronted by one particular aspect of Duffy’s campaign: his appeal to dressing well. In a suit and tie, against the backdrop of Ronald Reagan National Airport, Duffy asks us to dress “with respect,” concluding that “the golden age of travel begins with you.”
Detractors quickly snapped back that he could pry their sweatpants from their cold, dead hands. Even the New York Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman scoffed at the suggestion, demanding, “What does that even mean?” and lamenting that “in the Trump administration, optics have always been a running theme.”
Various studies, now suddenly irrelevant where the New York Times is concerned, have connected dressing well and living well. A 2023 study out of Temple University, for example, found that “dressing well in the office does more than just boost an [employee’s] daily self-esteem[;] it also leads to better productivity when it comes to completing tasks.”
Dressing well can even support mood regulation, something harried holiday passengers no doubt need. Forbes reports that “research published in the Global Scientific Journal reinforces the idea that clothing is not just a superficial aspect of appearance, but can act as a psychological tool for confidence-building, mood regulation and self-expression.”
“Dopamine dressing,” or putting thought into your outfit and often picking colorful clothes, was all the rage after the COVID-19 pandemic ended, as people were looking for simple ways to find joy.
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The term “dressing with respect” may have flummoxed the New York Times, but I’ll venture to guess that it means something like clean clothes with no graphic messages and pants that don’t look like they belong in your pajama drawer. It doesn’t have to mean a suit, but that certainly couldn’t hurt.
As photographer Bill Cunningham said, “Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life.” You might as well make sure it’s polished.
