Studio donates “Amelia” costumes to Oklahoma City-based Ninety-Nines
TOP: From left, Susan Larson, president of The Ninety-Nines, thanks “Amelia” director Mira Nair and star Hilary Swank for the donation of costumes from the film to the nonprofit group of women pilots at a news conference in Fairfield, N.J. BOTTOM: This white jumpsuit with the initial A.E. is one of the film costumes Fox Searchlight Pictures is donating to The Ninety-Nines. (BAM Photos)
A version of this story appears in Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Ninety-Nines bask in film’s spotlight on women fliers
FAIRFIELD, N.J. — With a shiny Lockheed Electra looming and a smudged white jumpsuit emblazoned with the initials A.E. hanging nearby, a hangar at the Essex County Airport was recently transported back to the 1930s.
The throwback clothing and aircraft were brought in for a press conference for the new film “Amelia,” a biopic of pioneering aviatrix Amelia Earhart. Along with the usual entertainment journalists, about 20 members of The Ninety-Nines took part in the event.
Based in Oklahoma City, The Ninety-Nines is an international organization of licensed women pilots from 35 countries. It was founded in 1929 by 99 female fliers, including Earhart, who became the group’s first president in 1931.
“Amelia” depicts “Lady Lindy,” as Earhart was known, and her soaring sisters organizing The Ninety-Nines.
“For the 5,000-plus women who are members of this organization, they look at Amelia as the icon, as the individual who planted that passion,” said Ninety-Nines President Susan Larson. “I’m really looking forward to a resurgence to women believing in themselves. … We’re really looking forward to the women of the 21st century being inspired by this movie and moving into aviation.”
“Amelia” director Mira Nair and star Hilary Swank presented Larson with the white jumpsuit, a brown leather bomber jacket and a matching leather hat, one of a number of costumes and props from the film that Fox Searchlight Pictures is donating to the nonprofit organization.
The costumes will be added to the collection at the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum in Atchison, Kan., where the famous flier was born on July 24, 1897. The Ninety-Nines acquired the wood-frame, Gothic Revival cottage in the 1980s and established it as a museum.
“It’s right on the Missouri River. You’re in Kansas, you look back over into Missouri,” Larson said, who lives in New Mexico. “You start to begin to understand how it might have been for Amelia as a young girl to look out across that country and imagine flying over it … where she’d seen her first airplane.”
The organization is thrilled to receive the costumes and will put them on display today, the opening day for the film and the start of the organization’s Earhart Education Week, she said.
Along with an aviation trailblazer, Earhart was a fashion trend-setter and one of the first celebrities to offer her own clothing line.
“We spent more than two years I think going through all the chronicles of Amelia Earhart,” Nair said. “She was in a sense one of the great icons and the first celebrity to endorse a lot of products.”
Costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maimone studied many old newsreels and photographs as she devised the look for Earhart, Nair said. The pilot was an “utterly modern” woman and her clothes reflected that attitude.
“Kasia has … gone back to the original, but creating a very modern look for ‘Amelia’ so that Amelia could walk in today in her gear and look like any woman wants to look today,” Nair said
“I hope we continue to inspire young men and women, with these costumes, with these artifacts, in having a dream and really achieving that dream.”
The Ninety-Nines presented gifts of their own to Swank and Nair. The Oscar-winning actress was given a bronze medallion traditionally awarded to the organization’s Amelia Earhart Scholarship winners.
“Hilary is learning to fly and we very much want to welcome her to join The Ninety-Nines when she gets her license,” Larson said, as her fellow pilots burst into applause.
Nair received an autographed copy of Earhart’s 1928 memoir “20 Hrs. 40 Min.”
Along with the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum in Kansas, The Ninety-Nines operate the 99s Museum of Women Pilots at Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers World Airport. Naturally, it’s located on Amelia Earhart Road.
For more information on The Ninety-Nines, go to www.ninety-nines.org.
-BAM
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