Airline Uniforms Secretly Sold to Sex Clubs

March 4, 2010 — -- Air travel might not be so sexy these days, but in Japan plenty of people are willing to pay top dollar for an experience with a club entertainer clad in an authentic Japan Airlines flight attendant uniform.

JAL, Asia's largest airline, which declared bankruptcy in January, is diligently working to ensure that its uniforms don't slip into the wrong hands as the airline faces massive layoffs, especially among its uniform-wearing crew. JAL this week announced it would cut its work force by 2,700, or about 5 percent.

People have been known to pay thousands of dollars for the outfits of JAL and rival airline All Nippon Airways, or ANA.

Joan Sinclair, a photographer who put together a book called "Pink Box: Inside Japan's Sex Clubs" said there is a big market for such uniforms, which women in the country's sex clubs have been known to wear.

"JAL still has the reputation of having beautiful flight attendants. Some of these uniforms will go for thousands. If they are genuine uniforms, they are in limited supply," Sinclair said. "Worn uniforms, if it comes with a Polaroid photo of the woman who wore it, go for a premium.

"JAL uniforms have been sold for years on the secondary market," she said.

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Sinclair said some of Japan's sex clubs are built to resemble the inside of an airplane.

"There's a club I documented in Osaka called Air Touch," Sinclair said. "They have a choice of first class or business class. They had women dressed like flight attendants. They served drinks, they served airplane snacks. They had the seat belts. They even had announcements over the loudspeaker. They gave out sexual services as well."

In the golden age of aviation, flight attendants -- then called stewardesses -- were known for their high heels, slim bodies, short skirts and seductive smiles.

American airlines have moved away from that image in favor of more comfortable outfits, with the expectation of the short-lived Hooters Air, which flew from 2003 to 2006.

Most Asian airlines still try to convey a bit of that sex appeal. Singapore Airlines is known for its Singapore Girls, used heavily in its marketing. Japanese passengers have a particular fondness for the uniforms of their country's two airlines. Most airlines around the world offer passengers collectible models of their airplanes. ANA goes one step beyond, also making available a series of statues -- think bobble heads -- of flight attendants in uniform.

JAL spokeswoman Carol Anderson said that in June 2005, somebody tried to sell a JAL uniform on the Internet. JAL bid more than $2,000 to keep the uniform out of the public's hands, according to the Kyodo News. Anderson would not comment on the bidding but said "the company was able to successfully recover the stolen property, and with the assistance of authorities, the seller was properly charged."