Styling the Unfriendly Skies
By Kim Lachance
Name one commercial airline that wouldn’t pass for SNL’s Total Bastard Airlines these days, save for perhaps JetBlue or Virgin Atlantic. The best coach air peasants can hope for in the unfriendly skies is a salty nut sack, a filthy cotton ball (pillow) – which some are now charging us for – and a snide “buh-bye” when we deplane. If it’s posh perks you crave, you’ll have to fork over the cash for First Class. Or you could deluxe DIY and pre-board Flight 001 in Beverly Hills, a swanky travel goods boutique where trendy frequent flyers stock up on extinct in-flight amenities, designer luggage, and emergency mini travel tins of organic, fair-trade exotic spices (!). Oh, and stainless steel flasks to drink away the turbulence, without blowing one’s vacation wad.
Chronic business travelers John Sencion and Brad John landed the concept for Flight 001 on an Air France flight 3,000 feet above somewhere between New York and Paris. They turned their sky-rage into “a jet setters dream: an all-inclusive, design-forward retail experience that satisfies the modern traveler’s every need.” As far as I can see (and spend), the bragging rights are justified, especially because most of Flight 001’s high-style/high-function travel gadgets come handily pre-packed – with OCD precision – in TSA (Thousand Standing A-holes)-ready Ziploc pouches. Sounds more like a slack packer’s dream to me.
Flight 001 takes the hassle out of messing with those clear plastic “liquid” baggies we’ve grown to loathe ever since the loonies ruined flying for the rest of us. The hand-sized lazy-enablers range from $5 to $24 and cover most travel essentials (liquid and not), everything from a To Go Bottle Set (seven regulation 3oz. travel bottles – how convenient) to Coghlan’s famous Survival Kit-in-a-Can (including: sardines; a bullion packet; fishing hooks; gum; one note; one pencil; two cubes of fire starter; one tea bag and a packet of sugar – How about a cigarette, a shot of whiskey and a cyanide pill?).
My favorites in the shop’s small luggage section are the bright yellow “Obscenity” luggage tags (pick up four for $24) that passive-aggressively articulate what I wish I could Tourette’s at fellow aggravation spiral (baggage carousel) luggage stalkers: Move your *%!?#!, bitch, so I can dive bomb my luggage and go home! In truth, the strap simply reads “*%!?#!.” I like my version better. I sprang for a sturdy stain-resistant luggage strap that tells fellow travelers (or your husband or your kids or anyone) to simply “Go Away!”
Mature “That’s Mine!” luggage tags further nail the point home, a place the travel-weary are dying to return to after inhaling stranger-breath in an aluminum pipe for hours on end.
Annatte, my friendly Flight 001 “attendant,” gives me the thumbs-up to unzip a few vacuum-sealed travel packs and paw their contents. “No, really. Go ahead. It’s cool. Everyone does it.” Well, all righty then. Who knew I’d look so svelte (and prepared, for once) in a nifty sweat-wicking stash belt? That would be a hideaway ’80s-style hip pack (yes, hip pack) that you stuff in your pants, along with your passport, cash ... and your I’m-officially-a-dork card.
Continuing on the paranoid freak theme, you could keep your travel wares on lockdown with a $12 combination SearchAlert padlock, the only luggage lock approved by the TSA (and the only one that’s legal). When it’s been opened (violated?) by Big Brother’s master key, a dot on the padlock turns from green to red (Mayday!), so you know exactly who stole your stuff: “Security!” Jeff, Annatte’s “in-flight” sidekick, chimes in. Damn TSA temps. It isn’t enough to Tune in our Tokyos and force us to get a whiff of each other’s bare feet (and make me swig my own breast milk in front a throng of fellow passengers – don’t ask. Hey, you’d do it too for a free upgrade to First Class. Chasing my me-milk with free (free! free!) Dom Perignon made it worth every sour sip.
Flight 001 is sandwiched between the Beverly Center and the Grove on a plush, trendy stretch of Third Street. The interior looks and feels (and oddly enough, smells) just like a commercial fuselage, only wider, sleeker, and gayer. Not a bad place to exorcise a fear of flying – there isn’t a bitchy flight attendant in sight and the cool stream of digital clouds continuously curling by on flat screens on either side of the “cabin” is quite calming.
And the bennies go beyond the cabin, unless we’re talking mile-high club. Flight 001’s Shame on You Kit from Herbal Essentials for “when you can’t make it home” takes you all the way with the locals. The kit equips you with a toothbrush; toothpaste; a one-size-fits-all thong (that’s just wrong); three condoms (good Lord!); a phone card; a packet of pain reliever and a “leave behind note” with envelope. Bon voyage, players!
Flight 001, 8235 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles, (323) 966-0001. www.flight001.com.
Published: 08/27/2008
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT
