Hello friends! Wow, that’s some cute Star Trek cosplay you’re rocking today. What do you mean, it’s just your regular clothing? Sometimes it’s hard to separate fashion from fiction, as I discovered when I researched futuristic costume design for a talk at Nine Worlds in 2016. I’m there this weekend, giving a different talk (Dressing for Dystopia: what should you wear for the end of the world?) but I thought I’d share this (slightly edited and updated) section of my previous talk, as 50 years of Star Trek costume design has provided an interesting parallel to the way that 20th Century fashion has evolved.
(text now copiously interspersed with my specially made and closet cosplays of Star Trek costumes!)
The original costume designer for Star Trek was William Theiss, and he was really the pioneer of the outrageous intergalactic outfit. Star Trek’s costumes have been derided and parodied over the years, but the costumes from the Original Series tell a really interesting story about fashion in the swinging sixties, and optimism in a decade of global upheaval and change. Star Trek is justifiably hailed as revolutionary: during the Cold War, Communist witch hunts and Segregation, the cast comprised people from different races and backgrounds, working together in harmony.
Thiess’s costumes tie in with the way Star Trek happily presented a radical idea as established and normal in the future world. Mary Quant and Pierre Cardin both claim the invention of the mini skirt in the late 50s, but even by the mid 60s, Uhura’s uniform mini-dress wasn’t just cool but could also still have been considered shocking in more conservative circles of society. Mini skirts were described as “frankly audacious, and worn only by the audacious”. In Star Trek’s utopian future, Uhura wears her uniform without attracting sexist comments from her co-workers, which is sadly still a ground breaking notion in some workplaces.
Mini skirts are now so ubiquitous they have lost their shock value, and have become a sort of visual shorthand for a woman who is more invested in her looks than her brains. This is quite obvious in some modern rom-coms: Bridget Jones is objectified and patronised by her creepy boss when she turns up to work in a short skirt, and Elle Woods in Legally Blonde has to fight to have her intellect recognised because none of her colleagues can see past her feminine clothes. I’m glad Michael Kaplan, who designed the most recent Star Trek films, fought against these lazy stereotypes and kept Zoe Saldana’s Uhura in a mini dress for some scenes, but also gave her some more practical outfits, because sadly mini dresses aren’t ideal for everything.
Back in the sixties, fashion became a major factor in breaking down visual class barriers: the same outfits worn by trendsetters like Jean Shrimpton and the Beatles could be worn by both young aristocrats and shop workers. Similarly the Star Trek costumes are more easily identified by the colour of the sweaters, which signify department, than the braid on the cuffs, which signifies rank. The quality of the costumes from the original series became something of a joke (most famously, the velour for the sweaters was chosen because it looked good under lights but it kept shrinking), but funnily enough that ties in with aspects of 60s clothing. Mary Quant tried making a ‘Wet Look’ PVC line, and the first garments were a disaster as no one had worked out the right machining techniques. Although Mary Quant had an official diffusion line at JC Penney, the 60s also saw the birth of what we now know as ‘fast fashion’. The explosion in the teenage market and the simplicity of the garments meant that plenty of high-fashion garments were copied very quickly for the high street from inferior fabrics or with inferior production methods.
Theiss’s costume designs for the aliens on the planets visited by the Enterprise are a kaleidoscope of styles from many different time periods and from all over the world, often involving surprising fabric choices. This description could also apply to Vogue magazine in the 60s; Brian Duffy’s photo story entitled “six characters in search of 66” consists of the following characters: The Lady of Shalott, Sally Bowles, Ton up or Rocker girl, Russian Heroine, East gone West and Space Girl.
(As a side-note, I could write another essay about cultural appropriation in Sci-Fi costumes and fashion design, but unfortunately there isn’t the space to do it here. In case you’re wondering what I mean by cultural appropriation, have a read of this blog post by Laila Woozeer, who explains it very clearly).
The glamour of cutting edge fashion didn’t always transfer seamlessly into sci fi costumes though - Reuben Torres’ collection for Harrods, designed for an age of “speed, fashion and leisure” was probably an inspiration for the costumes for Star Trek the Motion Picture, but the costumes weren’t well received and have been widely ridiculed. Possibly because the form-fitting beige jumpsuits made passing actors look like they were naked, and partly because people felt nostalgic for the colourful sweaters.
The sort of fabrics that were fashionable at the time a show was being made often have a big effect on costume design, even if the show is set in the future: the synthetic fabrics that were often by-products of industrial experimentation during the Space Race in the 60s were the obvious choice for costumes for Star Trek. In a decade where future innovation drove design, traditional fabrics looked old-fashioned and drab.
Theiss seemed to enjoy taking the popular fashions of the mid 60s to their extremes. Mary Quant wanted “relaxed clothes, suited to the actions of normal life”, and Pierre Cardin was designing for “the modern international man who travels and wants functional, lightweight and elegant clothes.”
Theiss saw that “Clothes since the mid century have become less and less bulky, less cumbersome, less protective- both physically and morally- and are headed faster and faster, apparently, for complete nudity.” We may not have reached this point in our everyday clothes, but looking at the trend for heavily embellished but completely sheer barely-there red carpet gowns, he may have had a point.
Pierre Cardin’s “cosmos” collection from 1967, inspired by the first space walks (and possibly also by Star Trek?) promoted what was then known as ‘unisex’ fashion: a body fitting sweater, under a tunic or pinafore dress, with dark tights or straight cut trousers. These could be worn in different combinations regardless of gender. This style of clothing definitely had an influence on the costumes for Star Trek the Next Generation, again designed by William Thiess for the first series.
His uniform design consisted of a jumpsuit or tunic, with both intended to be gender neutral. The tunic was worn fairly frequently by Deanna Troi, by Captain Picard and Commander Riker as dress uniform with trousers underneath, and by extras of any gender with bare legs and boots. This was a bold design decision at the time, but Theiss’s reasoning for his design was sound. He said “Having the actors and actresses both in skirts was to diffuse any sexist accusations that might have been associated with the old show”. Being the person responsible for the “Theiss titillation theory”: that the appeal of a costume was directly proportional to the possibility that it might fall off at any time, he was obviously aware of the casual sexism inherent in some of the more objectifying outfits. Reading interviews with him, though, I think he also just enjoyed the challenge of trying to sneak outrageous outfits past the censors, and letting his imagination run riot. Asked to describe his aesthetic in an interview, he said: “currently I really dig floor-length chiffon ponchos, tight knickers, crotch-high boots, pant legs that become bra straps and strong diagonals across the body.”
The pop culture perception of a 1980s workplace was one of power suits, big shoulder pads and corporate greed, so it’s really interesting that Star Trek TNG, which is essentially set in a workplace, albeit one that’s in space, rejected this imagery and drew more from another trend, the popularity of clothing associated with recreational sports and fitness being worn as fashion. Deanna Troi’s costumes were more reminiscent of a dance teacher or aerobics instructor than the traditional portrayal of a ‘counsellor’ on screen. Big hair and glitter abound in any non-uniform outfits, making scenes in Ten Forward, the ship’s bar, an interesting visual mix of 80s leisure wear and cutting edge club style.
And of course, there is the glamorous and ostentatious Lwaxana Troi, Deanna’s mother, who shows up occasionally and steals the show with her outrageous outfits. I loved the costume design for her so much I wrote about it here.
Later Star Trek series Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise gave their crews practical-looking jumpsuits and boiler suits, moving away from kitch costumes to outfits that would suit the more minimalist sensibilities of the 90s. There are still some examples of garish casual wear (I feel pretty sure that Jake Sisko’s sweaters are a tribute to the fad for shell suits, which alarmingly seem to be making a comeback), and the show also went into more detail about where their uniforms and off-duty clothes came from. The ships replicators, mostly seen producing “Earl Grey. Hot” for Picard also make and recycle the crew’s uniforms, and, presumably, the outfits for their off-duty shenanigans on the Holodeck.
Michael Kaplan’s designs for the Star Trek film reboots have updated the original costumes using high-tech looking microfibres, and he has deliberately designed contemporary fashion for the civilian populations of different worlds, rather than riffing on historical clothing. For the new TV series, Discovery, costume designer Gersha Phillips also updated the uniforms with sleek gender-neutral designs, and added in a nod to the popularity of slogan tees (or included a clever bit of in-show advertising for tie-in merchandise): the crew’s workout gear consists of black leggings and a t-shirt with the ship’s name abbreviated to “DISCO”.
Back in the present, it seems like the world of couture can’t make up its mind whether to take the future seriously, or just get involved in some Star Trek TOS cosplay. The theme for the 2016 Met Ball was “Manus X Machina: Fashion in an age of Technology”. The exhibition itself looked at the way the industry is combining traditional techniques with modern technology, but the red carpet featured more sci fi anachronism than innovative couture. Suzy Menkes, writing for Vogue, remarked that “the contrast between the graceful, almost sculptural exhibits and the celebrity vision of what ‘futurism’ means in clothing was dramatic, predictable, and sometimes ridiculous.”
Meanwhile, the sci fi costumes of imagined futures past are affecting our wardrobes in more subtle ways. Although traditional workplaces still enforce dress codes, relaxed working environments have given rise to a self-imposed dress code, one which involves comfortable, easy-to-wear clothing that people can wear for everything, to compensate for their lack of work/life balance. Popularly known as “athleisure”, the look is usually characterised by black stretch yoga pants and a statement sweatshirt. That sounds a lot like a Star Trek uniform to me!
I’m always up for chatting more about costumes or fashion history, and if you’re interested in needing out about Star Trek costumes or 60s fashion, here are some of the books I read to prepare for the talk:
Star Trek Costumes: five decades of fashion from the final frontier
Paula M Block and Terry J Erdmann
Fear and Fashion in the Cold War
Jane Pavitt
Swinging Sixties
Edited by Christopher Breward, David Gilbert and Jenny Lister
Nylon: the manmade fashion revolution
Susannah Handley
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