Cabin crew through the ages look back on the impact the uniform has had on their careers
As far as icons go, few are as enduring in the airline industry than the “Singapore Girl”. Since the ’60s, the Singapore Girl has been an embodiment of the airline’s quality of service and grace.
The sarong kebaya has been part of the airline’s identity longer than most people realise. Stewardesses with Malayan Airways were already wearing it from 1963, before Pierre Balmain reimagined the silhouette into the version the world has come to recognise – debuting in 1968, ahead of Singapore Airlines’ establishment as an independent carrier.
Prior to the kebaya, cabin crew had worn a more conventional uniform: a collared blouse, jacket and pleated skirt, standard to the era and indistinct from what most airlines were dressing their staff in at the time.
Balmain’s involvement is often dated to 1974, but the record is more precise than that. It was 1972 when his redesign first appeared, with the ground hostesses’ uniforms updated and debuting that October.
The 1974 revision that followed was narrower in scope – changes to ground stewards’ uniforms, and the introduction of a three-piece outfit for ground stewardesses and female ticketing staff. The flying kebaya, the one that became iconic, was already in place.
Fashion forward
For See Biew Wah, the flight stewardess chosen to model the kebaya for Balmain, the whole process was steeped in mystery, even though she is now well-known for being his model.
“I got a call from my cabin crew manager to meet a designer from Paris. Couture hadn’t really come to Asia, so I didn’t really know who [Balmain] was. At first, I was quite nervous, but I figured it was just part of another assignment.”
Biew Wah headed to Paris (“The airline didn’t even fly to Paris at the time!”), and was brought to the House of Balmain.
“Every morning for a week, I would walk to the designer’s maison, and at lunch time I would sit outside and people watch,” she says of the experience.
At the time, Balmain was also designing outfits for Queen Sirikit of Thailand.
“For me, this showed that he understood Southeast Asian designs,” shares Biew Wah.
The designer had Biew Wah carry herself as though she was working, to get a real feel for the kind of movement the kebaya allowed for. After a week in Paris, Biew Wah came back to Singapore.
“I never wore the finished product – I couldn’t have! That was far too precious. It is now in safekeeping by the airline,” she says.
For Biew Wah, the kebaya represents so much more than just a uniform for a job.
“Before becoming a flight stewardess, I had spent time in the United States, which left me bitten by the travel bug. I thought this job would give me the opportunity to go back [there]!” she says with a laugh.
“But really, the kebaya is something so dear to my heart. I’m very attached to it. At the time, we were not yet known for service – but half the battle is won just by wearing the kebaya.”
"At the time, we were not yet known for service – but half the battle is won just by wearing the kebaya”
A career for life
Lim Suet Kwee, who is now Manager of Cabin Crew Performance Management, has been with the airline since 1986, when she first became a flight stewardess.
At that time, she couldn’t have known that she would eventually be chosen to model for the airline’s first Madame Tussauds wax figure, and be the face of the airline throughout the ’90s.
“It’s always a girl’s dream to fly with Singapore Airlines,” says Suet Kwee, “but I didn’t have the courage to apply until a friend suggested it.”
She remembers what training was like in the ’80s, and how different things were back then.
“The passengers, the hardware, these were all very different,” she recalls. “But at the same time, [the] service will never change,” she says, noting that training now is still as rigorous as it was back then.
Like Biew Wah before her, Suet Kwee was also part of the “assignment pool”, referring to flight stewardesses who also worked ground events. Her sitting and subsequent wax figure for Madame Tussauds was another closely guarded secret that was only revealed to her after she arrived in London.
“After that, they took hundreds of pictures of me, and it was still very secretive – I couldn’t even tell my husband!”
Her role in the assignment pool made Suet Kwee a recognisable face for the airline all over the world.
In the late ’90s, she decided to step down and spend more time with family, but after a year and a half away, she found herself back as a “flying mother”, doing short daily routes that allowed her to be home with her family later.
“When I returned and did my first flight, putting the uniform back on made me realise how much I really missed the whole experience. I was so excited to be flying again,” she shares.
“The passengers, the hardware, these were all very different. But at the same time, service will never change”
Nearly six decades after stewardesses first wore the sarong kebaya, and over fifty years since Balmain gave it the silhouette the world has come to recognise, the kebaya flies unchanged, as integral to the airline’s reputation for service as the women who continue to wear it – an almost singular achievement in an industry that rarely stands still.
The kebaya has simply endured as something that has been lived in, and passed on, by generation after generation of cabin crew who understood instinctively what Biew Wah put into words – that wearing it meant something beyond the job.
“You’re basically living the brand,” she says. After all this time, that still seems exactly right.
Find out more about the sarong kebaya in this video featuring lesser known facts about its form and functionality:
This story was originally produced in 2018 and has been updated.
Additional reporting: Elise Wong
