How space became fashion’s latest obsession

It's all about the escape.

[D]uring the 1960s space race, many household objects were manufactured to not-so-subtly resemble space craft. The collective, near global hysteria about man’s potential to land on the moon represented an escape from the monotony of day-to-day factory or office life, it was an opportunity seized upon by brands to inject a sense of excitement into everyday objects. Movies, TV shows and literature duly followed suit with hugely successful blockbusters including 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barbarella tapping into the space-exploration zeitgeist. Fashion, of course, came along too. Paco Rabanne famously designed Barbarella’s iconic costumes and Audrey Hepburn cruised around town in an all-white suit complete with bug-eyed sunglasses and chin-strap helmet (all by Courrèges) in the opening scene of How to Steal a Million. Aerospace-inspired styles filtered subsequently into the mainstream.

“Mod” culture most notably channelled styles associated with the soul and jazz, sports and motor racing scenes, but it also appealed to futurism, particularly in womenswear, see William Klein’s photograph for Vogue (March 1965).

Once the race to the moon had been won by the Americans and excitement about the feat slowly began to dissipate, space-inspired fashions became scarcer. Moon boots were a sidenote of the 1970s as flares, platforms and wide-collars took hold and 1960s Bohemia proved a much more enduring trend. The increased popularity of psychedelic music and the influence of John Lennon meant sent hippie culture mainstream.

William Klein for Vogue, March 1965

Popular culture undeniably retained an interest in space travel, but without making a meaningful impact in fashion. Goth subcultures, the rise of skate wear, the emergence of sneaker culture, 80s broad and brawny suits and colour-block shell suits all failed to reference space as the global news cycle focused on more earthly pleasures (and displeasures) including the rise of Wall Street, the tech revolution and the AIDS epidemic. Even the 90s, which spawned a mercurial off-shoot of space-influenced fashion, the rave alien, preferred to leave space to the cinema.

The 80s

Of course, it makes sense. The 1960s was a critical time for aerospace technology. Man followed up on its promise and visited the moon, the astronaut-aesthetic manifested in itself in everything from vacuum cleaners to sunglasses. So why, then, has space become the fashion industry’s new muse? The answer lies in the sense of escape.

With global politics seemingly stuck on repeat – replaying after replaying garbled bile from Donald Trump, the United Kingdom announcing itself as a xenophobic mess via Brexit, multiple major cities existing under terrorist threat and one of the deepest recessions in modern economic history, it’s no surprise that leaving the galaxy has such sudden appeal. This, combined with the sense that we’re approaching a new frontier for space exploration – albeit likely to be a corporate exercise lead by SpaceX’s Bond-villainesuqe Elon Musk – has filtered down to us seeing Cara Delevingne in an astronaut sweater carrying a silver backpack and Alessandro Michele casting a collective of prosthetic-adorned aliens to wear his latest collections. Beam me up, Gucci.

Gucci AW17