What Hollywood designs today, you will be wearing tomorrow. Elsa Schiaparelli
Throughout history, science fiction has played an immense and trivial role in envisioning and dressing an ideological world. This chapter looks at the history of the unspoken contract between science fiction and the clothes we wear. This chapter features the historical context needed to support the case studies analyzed in the following chapters, thus demonstrating the academic resources that discuss the key historical moments, political dilemmas, and social circumstances that are associated with both science fiction and fashion. This chapter will go further into the mentality behind materializing a future and its fashion to withstand political and social dilemmas of the time.
American publisher Hugo Gernsback brought the term ‘Science-fiction’ to light in 1920. This first encounter can be described as a change in attitude towards space and time. The time between 1938 to 1946 is described as the ‘golden era’ of science fiction. This was the era when science-fiction gained public attention and a wide range of classic science-fiction stories were published. Often, we imagine the future whilst reimagining our present, it is often a reflection of our fears, hopes, and dreams. Curtis writes ‘Dreams of leisure and abundance, realizable through scientific empowerment were components of an evolutionary drive, towards a temporal ’frontier' or ‘horizon’.' Science fiction as we know it began in the nineteenth century during the industrial revolution. This was a period when the manufacturing process in Great Britain, Continental Europe, and the United States shifted from home to the factory. The industrial revolution produced machines and ideas that altered the world around society and in turn planted a fascination with change and progress. The industrial revolution brought change to civilians' mindsets but also in the way fashion was consumed. Society became more fashion-conscious and purchased clothing for style, not just a necessity.
Barry Curtis writes ‘The fashion Hollywood promoted were often a source of anxiety particularly in their perceived effects on young women', and continues with ’Hollywood served as a medium that was widely regarded as forcing the future into the present.' The earliest attempts to create a self-consciously modern language for clothing in the 20th century were recorded through the Soviet constructivists and the Italian futurist movement. With the mindset that the old must be replaced with the new, these two groups both set out to create a new man through architecture, art, and in turn clothing. In David Butler`s 1930s film Just Imagine, (Pictured in Figure 1) a futuristic New York set in the distant future of 1980 is depicted. In this vision of the future, fashion is a key principle in communicating the film's forward-thinking mindset. Posters featured in the film proclaimed ‘New York gone futuristic! And what fashions in a dress!’ In this, we discern science-fictions correlation with fashion and modern dressing. The fashion industry is continuously persisting in the next seasons' trends and attributes driven by a convergence of the present and the near future. Within this same era, an unearthed Pathe clip revealed what society and several U.S designers in 1939 envisioned fashion to look like in 2000, as seen in (figure 2). This clip exhibited those several designers demonstrating high-tech garments such as climate control belts, adaptable dresses for the time of the day, transparent nets, cantilever heels, and amenable skirts. The men are depicted as being fitted with a telephone, radio, and containers attached at the waist for coins and keys.
Barry Curtis writes that ‘The 1930s were a period of severe economic depression’ [Curtis 2014]. During this time, society became consumed by an infatuation with the notion of an idealistic future due to the pain and suffering caused on account of the Great Depression, a period of national economic downturn, severely affecting America and Europe. There is evidence of this in the work of industrial designers, copywriters, and visualizers of the time. The development of the atomic bomb and the beginning of the Cold War also led to an increase in interest in the science-fiction genre; in fact, this era is depicted as the golden era of science-fiction. Often the books from this genre reflected the fear in society at the time and hence an interest in what fashion would look like in the future well said. 'This future in. its full consumer-oriented glory was omnipresent in the work of industrial designers, copywriters, and visualizers' [Curtis 2014]. The correspondence between both institutions is evident through the conceptualization of an optimistic future that transpired over into the fashion industry: fashion was put on a pedestal to experiment, inspire and visualize an abstract future for society. As Curtis stated ‘Manufacturers sought to improve profitability by presenting optimistic versions of the future and accelerating sales by means of planned obsolescence: this brought the whole designed environment within the realm of fashion’ [Curtis 2014].
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The period between 1958 and 1963 might be described as the Golden Age of American Futurism. During the 1950`s America had reached its peak with its fascination with the future through rocket-shaped diners and American industrial designer, Norman Bel Geddes but the time for innovative development in our wardrobes transpired in the mid-60s through infamously celebrated designers, Pierre Cardin and Hardy Amies. In the 1960s culture was energized by boundless optimism and faith in technology, thus it expeditiously became the era of imagination.
The space race between the Soviet Union and the United States of America in the 1960s was more than a measure of scientific progress; this was a step into the next stage of humanity that left an indelible impression on culture for those involved and across the globe. President John. F. Kennedy's vision of the man reaching the moon catered heavily to America's newfound interest in Space travel and offered itself as inspiration to fashion designers such as Paco Rabanne, Thierry Mugler, and Pierre Cardin, all of which centered whole collections around the man on the moon. Vogue writes that ‘The Cold War`s space race had far-reaching consequences, not only inspiring fervent conversation and uncertainty about our relationship with the cosmos but also hugely influencing the cultural output. For fashion designers Andre Courreges, Paco Rabanne, and Pierre Cardin, it means devising a whole new way to dress’ [Jana 2019]. This led to a generation of designers, focused on dressing the future, Lila Ramzi writes that ‘The space race in the 1960s produced a crop of young designers equipping the fashion masses for what they envisioned as the next frontier’ [Ramzi 2014].
Pierre Cardin was the driving force behind the space-age aesthetic in fashion and was also the first fashion designer to visit Nasa. His clothing collections (seen in Figure 3) a direct result of the space exploration of the decade, feature asymmetric silhouettes, silver vinyl fabric, Cosmo corps suits, and porthole dresses. His modernist garments have been worn by 60s style icons such as Mia Farrow and the Beatles.
The period of geopolitical tension between the United States of America and the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1991 is generally interpreted as the Cold War. Alongside public excitement and anticipation for man`s first steps on the moon intertwined public anxiety and hostility that the Cold War promoted. Thus, the science fiction films from this era 1948 and 1962 have been heavily associated with arguing the notion that American security will be able to withstand external threats. Science fiction films presented indirect expressions of anxiety around the possibility of a nuclear holocaust or a communist invasion of America. Science fiction during this time catered to public anxiety about the bomb and communism. Thus, ultimately brought a new era of dressing, the Cold War era offered the public freedom in fashion, something the second world war couldn`t offer. Both American and Soviet leaders tried to use fashion to embody the ideological values of each political and economic system.
This chapter has demonstrated the contextual history between science fiction as a genre and the fashion industry. In these key moments and examples, we see how fashion is closely associated with the future and with modern living and a reflection of our cultural fears. We continue to witness historical moments in time associated with science fiction, space, and time influencing the fashion industry. Demonstrated through the Industrial Revolution`s transformation of a fashion-conscious consumer, and the exploratory attitude of the 20th-century movement through Pierre Cardin, Andre Courreges, and Paco Robanne`s pioneering of space-age fashion following the space race of the 1960s and the new era of experimenting with dressing precipitated by the cold war.
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