Philippine Airlines Enlists a Fashion Designer to Create New COVID-19 Cabin Crew Uniforms

You wouldn’t think that the middle of a global pandemic would be the best time for an international airline to announce a collaboration with a fashion designer for a new cabin crew uniform but that’s exactly what Philippine Airlines has just done – although when you check out the uniform that has been created it all makes a lot of sense.

Philippine Airlines enlisted the help of local Filipino designer Edwin Tan to create a special COVID-19 range of personal protective equipment (PPE) for cabin crew who will be operating special repatriation flights to get its own citizens home and return stranded foreign tourists.

A spokesperson for the airline, Cielo Villaluna said the “immediate need for personal protective gear for our cabin crew assigned to special flights prompted several producers of these garments to collaborate with Philippine Airlines.”

“Eliciting high-level excitement is the output of fashion designer Edwin Tan. His creations fuse the elements of protection, comfort and PAL branding,” Villaluna said in a Facebook post.

Edwin’s design includes “subtle branding” of the Philippine Airlines logo but other producers have produced plain white aprons and the airline even sourced some lurid green overalls in the rush to make sure cabin crew were given adequate protection.

“We didn’t have time to print or embroider so we came up with the idea of mimicking or reworking the ‘flag’ logo of PAL,” Edwin said of the design. “We used a non-porous material for the PPEs. A material with substantial weight to give it a better fall than generic PPEs,” he adds.

Philippine Airlines has been forced to ground all normal domestic and international flights until at least April 30. If approval is given, the airline will initially serve international destinations on a reduced schedule. It’s not known how long PAL flight attendants will need to wear the full PPE but Villaluna suggests it might be for a while, saying:

“Eventually, a single, branded ‘look’ will fill up our flights this ‘Season’. Kudos to our crew, our inflight heroes”