Flying In (No) Style!

My position on any fashion article that deals with "Cute and Comfortable Travel Clothes" or "Flying in Style!" or "Airplane Chic!" is that it is full of damned, dirty lies and the writer should be made to wear mustard yellow Carhart overalls into Saks Fifth Avenue as punishment for her ethical defects. Articles like this almost always show you outfits consisting of expensive jeans, a light cashmere sweater, and a bright-colored pashmina (Seriously, how many times have you seen that exact outfit in a magazine being hailed as a revolutionary fashion equation?). They even recycle the same phrase about the pashmina, something along the lines of "A bright pashmina will punch up your outfit on the ground but can also double as a light blanket on the plane--perfect!"

I used to heed these articles' advice and try to be cute on plane rides, I did. I loved the idea of landing in a new place all fresh and chic and ready to roll. But in reality, my intense fear of flying means that my hours in the air are spent hyperventilating as my boyfriend holds my arms down and tries to convince me that this bout of light turbulence does not warrant breaking the complimentary beverage cup and ending the pain with a shard of plastic to the neck while other passengers glare at me for screaming "Gah! This is it! We're going down! Goodbye cruel world!" one too many times.

By the time I arrive at my destination, I'm hoarse, have lost all the color in my face, contracted a cold, and just want to sleep for days on the sweet, sweet ground. This is the time in my life when I probably care the least about being cute. And despite my dramatic tendencies, and I know many of you are going to disagree with me on this, I don't think jeans are that comfortable on plane rides. I've worn expensive jeans, cheap jeans, tight ones and loose ones, and they always end up sticking to me or bunching up wrong or being too stiff or cutting into my stomach and it's enough to make me very nearly condone Juicy Couture tracksuits.

Anyway, I'm flying home tomorrow morning (keep it together, Winona, keep it together), and I thought I'd show you the slight crime of fashion (a misdemeanor, really) that I'm planning to wear.

Let's start with the meat of the offense:

Yes, I'm wearing leggings. No, I'm not going to cover my ass with a long tunic or skirt or dress for the sake of the world as style experts desperately plea. These are comfy, soft, stretchy, and really unflattering--perfect. I like to pretend that I look like a much larger thighed version of Audrey Hepburn...so don't ruin this for me, okay?

To continue the Hepburn (dis)illusion, I pair them with this:

Ah, the wonderful J. Crew sweater I bought a couple months ago (mine is blue). It is also soft, comfy, and stretchy, but actually quite flattering. Maybe the chic top will make up for the blatant display of cellulite and major risk of transpacific camel toe due to my choice of bottoms? Probably not, and even if it did, the shoes send the outfit all to hell anyway:

The coup de grace of my air travel outfit: my ratty pink fur-lined moccasins that aren't nearly as nice as the ones in this picture. They're stained and ripped and definitely make me look the part of the mentally disturbed person that I am while in the air.

This has pretty much become my go-to travel outfit. It's the sad truth that I would probably wear this if I were, I don't know, getting off the plane to meet the press after my presidential inauguration, or arriving in a foreign country as a rookie diplomat, or landing in Paris to accept the award as Most Fashionable Person In The World. Yeah, that would be a bad choice, but for me and my paranoia, there is no such thing as flying in style. Hopefully there's no such thing as flying in an airline-mandated straitjacket either...

Pray for me.