Is Emirates Airline Running Out of Sky?

In their fifth week of training, women hired as flight attendants at Emirates Airline spend a day in Dubai with Pamela Mizzi. A makeup artist from Malta who spent 12 years in the sky herself, Mizzi greets the students in a windowless instruction space about 20 feet across, lined on three sides by mirrors divided into vanities by bright roundels of light, like an old-timey dressing room. Her job is to teach the trainees how Emirates expects them to look.

Female cabin crew, referred to invariably as “girls,” are to tie their hair back in tight buns, preferably secured by a scrunchie in Emirates-brand red. For makeup, a seven-step process is recommended, starting with foundation and concealer, then moving on to lipstick, also in preauthorized shades of crimson. At the back of Mizzi’s classroom are two display racks of Emirates-approved emollients for “body shaping,” “firming,” “wrinkle control,” and “luminosity.”