Bomber jackets take off

Turns out Amelia Earhart was at the height of fashion with her aviation ensemble.

Her leather jacket — cuffed at the waist and sleeves to protect her from the cold air at high altitudes — was practical, but she wore it with aplomb.

We've seen many a photo of her, often wearing a jacket over a shirt buttoned low and a scarf tied jauntily around her neck.

It's a look we're sure to see again soon with Hilary Swank portraying the "First Lady of the Air" in the new "Amelia" movie.

So how would Earhart dress today?

Bomber jacket over a dress to the office? Over leggings to the club? Over a ruffled blouse instead of a menswear shirt?

Would it even be leather? Today's bomber jackets come in silk, faux fur, nylon, polar fleece and even sequins. She'd have so many choices.

"When women wore them in the past, they would generally be their boyfriend's jacket, or their dad's or their granddad's. It was essentially a hand-me-down," says Macy's spokesman Kamal Bosamia in Chicago.

"It was a very comfy piece of their wardrobe, and they adopted it as their own. Now what we're seeing is that it's not just a comfort piece. It is a statement piece, especially this season."

Time to unleash your inner aviatrix.

Military roots

The bomber, aka flight, jacket is no lowly piece of outerwear. Heads of state have been known to present them as gifts.

In 2007, at the end of Gordon Brown's visit to Camp David, President George W. Bush gave the British prime minister a brown leather bomber jacket wrapped in gold paper and bearing the presidential seal.

That's a far cry from the jacket's military roots, which by most accounts trace back to World War I, when British bomber pilots sported long leather flying coats. The leather helped shield the pilots, who flew in planes with open cockpits, from the elements.

American forces quickly adopted the warm, practical outerwear. In 1931, the U.S. Army Air Corps issued the design that remains popular today — waist-length with front zippers, high wrapped collars, wind flaps on the front and tight cuffs on the sleeves.

There was something a little edgy, dangerous and adventurous about the jacket and the people who wore them. And it didn't take long for the fashion industry to steal the look for the everyman and everywoman.

Flights of fancy

Freelance stylist Cristy Guy owns a bomber jacket that she likes to pair with blue jeans and high heels.

"I think that, especially when we translate it into women's wear, it's very sexy," says Guy, who lives in Mission, Kan.

"And the leather adds a little bit of roughness so that when you wear it with very feminine pieces, it just has a really cool look about it. And it doesn't ever really go out of style.