Thursday, January 15, 2009

The beautiful fantasy of revisionist history

Of course, it was never really like this.

And of course it absolutely doesn't matter. Because our senses our delighted at the imagined world back in 1984 when Virgin Atlantic started flying translatlantically.

It's a faithful (if not tongue in-cheek) capture of London life, full of subtle observations about technology (look at the brick-sized cell phone) the economy (miners' strike) entertainment culture (Asteroids arcade games, rubik's cube, a Big Country album) and how utterly colorless flying was back then (and still is in many regards).

There are definitely hints of Addicted to Love in the stunning collection of Flight Attendants, though here wearing the corporate red rather than the black of the Robert Palmer video.

Thank you to Virgin (and RCKR/Y&R) for this delightful piece of fantasy that does it's job in style.