Textile texts: Science fiction fashion: the main thing is uniforms

In the final scene of the first film in the 1977 Star Wars series, A New Hope, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo are awarded medals by Princess Leia after the destruction of the Imperial Death Star. The scene is not without unintentional comedy, as this procedure looks like the awarding of gold medals. The members of the rebel army stand in rows, dutifully arranged by trade, in a large factory-like hall and applaud politely. Despite all the pop credibility of the “Star Wars” series, hardly any film scene implements the Fordist order, which is typical of many science fiction films of the time, in such a picture-perfect manner as this appeal. Clothing is very important. In addition to the orange pilot uniforms, the soldiers’ olive green drills and the technicians’ beige “blue overalls” can be seen. Luke wears a strange yellow anorak that sets him apart from the crowd, Han Solo wears his masculine cowboy vest complete with a dangling Colt, and Princess Leia wears her obligatory white dress, branded by a Californian New Age priestess. The clothing in this scene reveals a lot about the SF genre that was booming in Hollywood at the time. In addition to the Fordist uniform fetish, which was so formative for the space opera that was booming in the cinema at the time and was to remain so for a long time, the Californian 70s chic of Princess Leia can be seen here, because the outfits in science fiction always reflect that Fashion trends of the respective period of origin. Han Solo’s cowboy disguise, in turn, shows that Hollywood’s science fiction dreams repeatedly transfer the Wild West motif into space or the future.

Harrison Ford also played the gun-carrying hero five years later in the SF cult film “Blade Runner” (1982), although the android-hunting main character in Philip K. Dick’s original novel is more of a frustrated civil servant struggling for social recognition and not a gun-wielding macho man. The clothing aesthetic of Ridley Scott’s opus “Blade Runner” seems almost timeless in the wake of various 80s revivals, although Rachel’s shoulder pad costume is just as iconographically representative of the fashion of the time as the android Roy’s new wave punk outfit. As a mass media image machine, science fiction films naturally always influence or reflect fashion trends. This is also particularly true of the Matrix series, which fed the rubber and paint fetish into mainstream aesthetics as an integral part of techno fashion in the 90s. The fashion world, in turn, had an influence on the aesthetics of cinema in Luc Besson’s blockbuster “The Fifth Element” (1997), for which various clothing designs were created by Jean-Paul Gaultier, with which Milla Jovovich, Bruce Willis and Chris Tucker were dressed in a ridiculously brightly colored futuristic world running. But the aesthetics of the clothing, for which Hollywood’s successful designer Jacqueline West is responsible, are also very important in “Dune 2”, which was recently so successful at the box office.

Many blogs therefore speculated for weeks about the film’s influence on the fashion world and how much Dior or Prada there was in the individual costumes. Despite all the importance that has been attributed to the influence of the fashion world on science fiction films, especially recently, fashion designers hardly play a role in science fiction stories. The exception here is Cinna, played by Lenny Kravitz, who designs a burning dress for Katniss Everdeen in “Hunger Games” and whose subversive fashion designs become part of the fight against authoritarian rule, for which the fashion designer is ultimately even executed. Despite this close motif to fashion design, it is noticeable that the characters in science fiction, especially in the space opera sub-genre, often wear very banal and boring uniforms. This also becomes clear in the scene from “Star Wars” mentioned at the beginning and continues unabated.

This ranges from the pajama-like uniforms in “Star Trek”, which actually seem quite out of date, but are consistently continued as a visual brand core through all series and feature film spin-offs of the “Star Trek” series, to the uniform fetish, which is particularly sexualized among female actors, as in “Starship Troopers” (1997), “Oblivion” (2013), “Valerian” (2017) and countless others. This trend is broken by two younger series that rely on a dark “industrial style” when it comes to clothing. In both “Expanse” and the “Star Wars” spin-off “Andor,” two comparatively political science fiction stories critical of power, many rebels wear a subcultural, proletarian style of clothing. Only prison inmates, guards and imperial fascists walk around in “Andor” in uniforms. The resistant rebels are casually dressed in leather, dark clothing, sometimes slightly hippie-esque and functional. In “Expanse,” the polyamorous spaceship crew around Camina Drummer (Cara Gee) almost looks like a stylish Antifa group in their black outfits. Let’s see whether the uniforms that still dominate the science fiction genre will finally be discarded at some point. It’s about time.

Become a member of the nd.Genossenschaft!

Since January 1, 2022, the »nd« will be published as an independent left-wing newspaper owned by the staff and readers. Be there and support media diversity and visible left-wing positions as a cooperative member. Fill out the membership application now.

More information on www.dasnd.de/genossenschaft