Ultra Swank - Retro Adventures

Travel

Fly Me Friendly – What Air Travel Used to Be

To travel the skies today is as innate as sipping on a chai latte. Jetting across the world upon a chair suspended 30,000 feet above the ground, all while enjoying a dry Martini, has become the norm. Once reserved to describe the rich and famous, the words ‘jet set’ have entered our common jargon. However, air travel hasn’t always been painless and unstrained. Once upon...

Luggage: From Ocean Liners to the 1960s International Jet Set

Look back at the 20th century and you’ll struggle to find a moment where the world was not in a state of flux. From the Titanic to the two biggest wars in human history; the invention of computers to nuclear fission, the 20th century is peppered with transformative events and technological developments which ushered in massive changes to our way of life. One of the...

What Airports Looked Like in the 1970s

I have always felt that there is something cosy and homey about the color schemes of the 1970s. Dark and powerful earth colors dominated the design of the corporate, home and commercial western world. From shopping malls, to the basement den to the airport. So, follow us as we visit some airports of the period to experience what checking in was like in the 1970s....

Rendezvous in Paris – Two Chic Boutique Hotels

Check into and discover two stylishly chic boutique hotels located in the enchanting French capital of Paris. Whether you prefer clean lines and designer chairs, or refined details and fabrics with a touch of 18th century charm, Le Général and Caron De Beaumarchais offer their visitors a unique diversity that will have any design lover clapping their hands in delight. For those of you who...

Save the Worldport – A Piece of Pan Am History
Written by Baron von Swankenstein in Travel

Save the Worldport – A Piece of Pan Am History

Every mid-century maven knows Pan Am. All swank jet-setting dreams began with the famed airline. The first to employ luxury jetliners (Boeing 707s in 1958 and Boeing 747s in 1970), Pan Am was one of the founders of the commercial Jet Age. With 86 destination countries on all six major continents at its peak in 1968, the Pan Am name was synonymous with style, luxury,...

Seeing the Sun Rise on Dulles International Airport

In 1964 my father accepted a job as Press Secretary for Senator Carl Hayden of Arizona, so my family left the Arizona desert outside of Phoenix for the foothills of the great Blue Ridge Mountains of Fairfax, Virginia, approximately thirty miles from Washington D.C. and approximately thirty miles from the newly emerging Dulles International Airport that straddled Fairfax and Loudoun Counties. Northern Virginia was in...

Video
Written by Christopher in Travel

Look at Life – City of the Air

For those of you who are waiting to get away over the summer, here’s some inspiration. This “Look at life” video clip from The Rank Organisation dated May 1964, tells us about air travel in England from Heathrow Airport featuring classic BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) and BEA airplanes. Look at Life was a regular British series of short documentary films of which over 500...

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