I like the cut of your jib (if that's what that garment is called--it *is* the future, you know)

[trinityvixen]

So this guy comes off as an asshole (and he's also attacking one of the more brilliantly colorful sci-fi movies in my recent memory, but I still think the central point is a valid one: where has the fashion gone in space?

The fashion industry makes its bones on imagining outfits for the future, and more than a few runway shows have been throwbacks to old visions of tomorrow, like those of Star Trek (or Star Wars or Doctor Who--hell, I saw a Cyberman face on a hat at one show). The fashion industry deals only with clothes, but they manage. So you'd think that movie studios designing the future wholesale wouldn't neglect fashion as they imagine their new worlds. If you can dream up a gravity-having starship, surely you can figure out a new pattern of dress for all involved.

But there's a caveat to such imaginings and that is that what seems "new" and "futuristic" can seem silly and dated inside of a decade. In an attempt to make their movies "timeless," creators avoid taking risks and making any outre fashion statements that might date their film. (ivy03 recently touched on this issue in contemporary novels.) They're right to be worried--it's pretty easy to date the films of the 1950s, say, by all the mylar jumpsuits and the like--but they're also wrong to assumed that dating a film somehow diminishes it. Rather, those dated looks inform us about the period in which that fiction was created (in addition to how that period regarded the future and the future of technology). That is a useful sort of reference to have, not a shameful one. (Okay, some outfits are ridiculous--thinking Aeon Flux here. But there are plenty that are ridiculous and still full--think The Fifth Element.)

We've outgrown most of our visions of the future. (Coming back to Star Trek, we're supposed to make faster-than-light travel and first contact in the next fifty years. And we have to fit in another world war before then.) What we haven't done is stopped envisioning the future. Our previous assumptions about the future--flying cars by the 1980s! killer robot armageddon by 1997!--have come and gone and we've just made up new ones, with new end dates. And, importantly, new styles. We base the new on what has come before in most things. If all we do is make things "realistic" for the current time and apply that to the future, we make static a process that is, if frequently repetitive in its motifs, inherently dynamic. Fashion moves on, even when it loops back on itself. There are certain styles that never go away--they are "classics," which, to my mind, means they serve a political/social/psychological/practical purpose that transcends the differences of technology. (Think of military uniforms, the suit, underwear, etc.) But styles will, can, and do change otherwise. (Especially as we incorporate new fabrics and technology into them.)

Mostly? I object to fashion being sidelined in science-fiction because "realism" means "dirty and brown" to less visionary creators. (VG Cats has it exactly right on this score.) Video games have been abusing this brown-is-the-new-color thing for a while now. Films have been doing this forever. (Go ahead, Costner: make one more movie where you're the rag-covered savior of the future, and I'll hunt you down.) It's boring. It also supposes that, even in futures where the world hasn't been ravaged by disease/robots/aliens/other people, color doesn't belong. I can't believe that is true. Even Wall-E had color. Yes, it was brown and dusty and faded, but there were reds in the B-N-L ads and true blacks (as opposed to brownish-grays), and, most importantly, the washed out color served to emphasize the popping green color of the plant. If the brown is a contrast, it's okay, but all on its own? C'mon. (Wall-E, you'll note, didn't do crazy things as far as fashion--jumpsuits! been there!--but it did give people SOME FREAKING COLOR in their clothes.)

Comments

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

What about the disposable clothes in Idiocracy? I liked them because they reflected the setting's attitude towards the environment ("fuck it"), and also because I could imagine myself wearing them. (It'd be great not to have to do laundry...)

I think that should be key: The clothes should tell you something about the social mores, as well as the technology, of the people wearing them.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Video games have been abusing this brown-is-the-new-color thing for a while now. Films have been doing this forever. (Go ahead, Costner: make one more movie where you're the rag-covered savior of the future, and I'll hunt you down.) It's boring.

Yes. This is a large part of why I hate the generic big FPSs like Gears of War and Killzone, and love Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Fallout 3 (granted the last one has lots of ugly brown color, but that really is part of a realistic portrayal of post-apocalyptic Washington.)

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

What is he going on about? Why do clothes have to be outlandish or colorful to signify the future? We've been wearing jeans for over a hundred years, and similar clothing goes back even farther than that. Some things are just never going to go out of style.

One of the most dated things about Quantum Leap is what they thought we'd be wearing in 1999. But it works in Back to the Future II, which was playing off how ridiculous future clothing could be.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think that should be key: The clothes should tell you something about the social mores, as well as the technology, of the people wearing them.

That's half the fun of watching old movies--peering through the story to the creators! It's applicable whether you're talking clothes or any other element of a movie. How the story is told says as much as the story being told itself.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I first noticed and was totally over this with Shadow of the Colossus. I like color, damn it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Why do clothes have to be outlandish or colorful to signify the future?

I think it reflects a certain assumption about the future that we often find future-set stories with colorful clothes--there's a sense of liberty and experimentation in it. As with the world building, so with the costumes!

But, no, it's not really necessary to have outlandish costumes. Color is a different story, though--even if fashions don't radically change, we should expect to see more color than we often do.

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

I know the guy was mostly referring to the outfits of non-Starfleet people, but I was impressed that JJ and co. decided to stick with the original 60's Starfleet uniform designs (save a few modern tweaks). I cried tears of joy when they showed the the girls were wearing skirts. I generally think that the uniforms in every ST series save TOS (and now this movie) were hideous. Jumpsuits in space? NO.

I don't know who decided that realism=drab but they need to go away. And if they're going to have a drab outfit they should frame it the way they did in Star Trek: Spock ditches the Vulcan council and his ugly sweater for Starfleet and the sleek blue shirt. (Although I have a weird soft spot for the sweater, but only cause Quinto Spock looked like a total nerd in it.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I liked the vibrancy of the new uniforms but not the miniature starfleet icons on the shirts--it made it look like they were all...scaly. As for TNG and later: the uniforms made a little more sense, but they weren't really all that attractive. They also messed the hell up out of the order of TOS job assignments, you know? Captain in red? The fuck?

As for the Vulcan outfits, they were drab in color, but they were marvelous in texture. I loved Spock's sweater. It was a strangely amorphous yet still flattering shape. And, yes, Quinto wore the hell out of it. He looked at once very young and very old. (It was an old guy's sweater with a young guy's cut.) Likewise Amanda Grayson's outfit and her cowl--very beautiful texture, alluring yet disguising shape. Vulcan drabness sort of gets a pass because the lack of color is made up for in the architecture of the clothing. So long as the rest of the universe doesn't have to be that colorless, I can allow it.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

The patterned uniforms looked terrible, like repurposed curtains. And of all the things to keep, they kept the damn miniskirts? Bleh!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I agree about the pattern looking weird. To me, they looked like scales. The miniskirts are also ridiculous, but they're kind of cute in their own way. Completely impractical, yes, but still all sorts of adorable. I blame the 1960s aesthetic--I'm totally a sucker for it. It's still all sorts of mod and cool.

What I most appreciated was the color. The color was fantastic. Good art direction in that much at least!

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

A jib is a sail, by the way, not a garment.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

While literary authors may care about their legacy, i do not think the creators of big commercial films are really worrying about whether people will rent it in ten years. They're carrying about how it will do opening weekend. So I don't think fashion in sci fi is limited because of that. They're trying not to be too like current fashion because that will break the illusion that it is in the future. But the fashion is still inevitably influenced by the current fashion. I think with Star Trek they were really going for "sleek and modern," and I actually liked all the various uniforms.

It's kind of like on PR when they ask for something to be modern--it's such an amorphous concept, but people know it when they see it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It could be clothes....IN THE FUTURE!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I agree with the concept of modernity in sci-fi fashion, but I think you give movie makers too little credit when it comes to their paranoia. Yes, they're mostly looking to make money opening weekend, but the modern movie is also a vehicle for sequels. Sustainability of vision over time is now a pre-requisite for making a movie since most movies are launched with the idea of there being more of that movie. (Save for the auteur/indie crowd and the biopic, of course.) So fashions that translate over time are also key to understanding why some films might be so risk-averse when it comes to clothing: your outfits may be either ridiculous or current by the time the sequel rolls around.