What not to wear when going to a crowded airport

With Thanksgiving coming up and everyone heading home for the week, the central question for all those who are flying back is: what to wear on the plane? Wear the wrong outfit, and you will be inconvenienced and uncomfortable for hours on end; heed my words and wear the right outfit, and you will be forever thankful.

Without further ado, here are the three important things for you to keep in mind when dressing for a plane ride.

The first is weather. Going to Hawaii over winter break? I would suggest against shorts unless you are leaving from California or Florida. On the flip side, don’t wear a down jacket and Uggs because you will arrive looking ridiculous and very uncomfortable.

Your best bet is to wear layers. Pants, some kind of closed toed slip on shoes like Birkenstocks (with socks), a short sleeve shirt, sweater and a fleece. When you get to the airport you can stick your fleece in your bag before you put it on the plane.

Secondly, you want to dress appropriately. Ladies, no matter what the weather is you should not wear low cut shirts or short shorts in an airport.

I’ve seen some pretty atrocious things on my many trips in airports, like the woman wearing a blazer as a shirt with nothing under it and the woman wearing a white see-through skirt with a bright pink thong. Don’t call unwanted attention to yourself — airports are not good places to pick up guys (didn’t your parents ever teach you not to talk to strangers?), and the less clothes you wear, the more likely you are to attract the wrong kind of guys anyway.

And when I say appropriate I also mean practical — you want to wear clothes that don’t get in the way when you are going through security. That means avoid pants that you need to wear a belt with, wear as little jewelry as possible, and as I already mentioned, wear shoes that you can easily slip on and off.

Thirdly, you want to dress comfortably. No matter how far away you are going, you will undoubtedly spending a few hours in the airport in addition to your flying time (South East Asia overall travel and waiting time? 28 hours — 2 hours in JFK, 2 hours to Chicago, 2 hours in the airport, 12 hours to Japan, 3 hours in the airport, 7 hours to Thailand). I suggest sweatpants (this also helps you with the belt issue mentioned above) and as I said before, slip on shoes, and of course layers. I’m sure you have all experienced the changing temperatures on planes — you get on and it’s boiling hot, you go to sleep and wake up freezing cold.

This is where layers come in handy. The sweatpants are for sleeping (if you are lucky), and the slip on shoes are great for those times when you are on the plane and there is no line for the bathroom and you need to get your shoes on really fast to beat any possible competition.

That being said, dressing for comfort does not give you the excuse to be tacky. For the love of god, velour tracksuits are NEVER okay to wear. I would also advise against extremely oversized clothes — you don’t want to look like a homeless person, and the sketchier you look the more attentiona1 you will attract from security personnel — never a good thing.

When you finally get home after what hopefully was a comfortable, snug plane ride, you will then be able to proudly respond when your parents ask you what you’ve been learning in school: how to dress properly on an airplane, duh. They’ll be glad to know all that tuition money is going to good use.