Space Age Fashion
When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon 40 years ago, they set off a style revolution—one small step for man, one giant leap for fashionkind.
AP Photo; Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
On July 20, 1969, Buzz Aldrin became the second astronaut to walk on the moon. For their latest “Core Values” ad campaign, photographed by Annie Leibovitz, Louis Vuitton features the ultimate travelers: astronauts Aldrin, Sally Ride—the first American woman in space—and Jim Lovell, who guided Apollo 13 back home after its ill-fated mission. They star alongside Louis Vuitton “Icare” luggage, named after, yep, Icarus, that great mythological man of flight.
AP Photo; Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
Clear Perspex visor, check. Blue vinyl miniskirt and matching scarf, check—because nothing keeps you warmer in the abyss of space than plastic. Space suits inspired the collections of Pierre Cardin, André Courrèges, and Paco Rabanne starting in the mid-'60s, resulting in outfits worthy of imaginary flight attendants headed to the moon, like this one worn by Raquel Welch circa 1967.
Terry O'Neill / Getty Images
There was no better designer for scandalous sci-fi gogo girls in space, like Jane Fonda in Roger Vadim’s Barbarella, than Paco Rabanne. His costumes for the 1968 film, as with his mod collections during the ’60s, favored hard-edged materials like plastic and metal chain link, setting the standard for all those future comic-book heroines brought to life on the screen.
Keystone / Getty Images
A model wears an outfit from Pierre Cardin’s Cosmocorps collection from 1968.
Keystone, Hulton Archive / Getty Images
As Pierre Cardin saw it, nurse uniforms in the future, which he designed in 1970, would not be entirely dissimilar from medieval nun’s habits.
Popperfoto / Getty Images
For future space travelers headed to Mars—or, more realistically, to the moon—in the near future, leave it to Louis Vuitton to be one step ahead with a chic luggage solution. Their not-for-sale pod-ike concept trunk, Malle Mars, is designed to hold necessities like tools and medical supplies, dishware for a planetary picnic and a lounge chair. Perfect for a holiday spent gazing at the Sea of Tranquility.
Louis Vuitton
If the fashion of the future in the ‘60s was all about space suits, reflective solar silver, and lunar white, for the red planet, the neutral palette of a desert-dwelling wardrobe—think Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi—might be more appropriate for canvassing the dusty Martian landscape. Calvin—and the following three designers—picked runway looks culled from Space Age influences.
(c) 2009 Dan Lecca
Carolina Palmgren
Alexander Wang
KT Alueta / VPL
Yves Saint Laurent
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