BY BRANDY McDONNELL, Staff Writer
The Oklahoman
10/23/2009

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 news 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.

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 its 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. "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 the
white jumpsuit, a brown leather bomber jacket and a matching leather hat,
among 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 she was born 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,” said Larson, 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 will put the costumes on display today, the film’s opening
day and the start of the organization’s Earhart Education Week, she said.

Along with being 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 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.

"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.

The Ninety-Nines gave Swank a bronze medallion traditionally awarded to its
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.

They gave Nair an autographed copy of Earhart’s 1928 memoir, "20 Hrs. 40
Min.”

Along with the museum in Kansas, The Ninety-Nines operate the 99s Museum of
Women Pilots at Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers World Airport.