Today, we are living in the New Space Age, where mass commercial space travel is almost within our grasp. This otherworldly possibility has opened up new cultural images of space, both real and fictional, and has caused fashion design and spacesuit engineering to intersect in new, exciting ways. Spacewear traverses this uncharted territory by exploring the changing imagination of space in fashion-and fashion in space-from the first Space Age to the 21st century. Exploring how space travel has stylistically and technologically framed fashion design on earth and how we need to revisit established design practices for the weightless environment, Spacewear connects the catwalk and the space station.This book draws together speculative fantasies in sci-fi films such as Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey , with the engineered spacesuits Biosuit , and the NASA Z-2 and with catwalk interpretations by the likes of Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, Andre Courreges, and Iris van Herpen. While the development of commercial space agencies has led to new concerns for style in garments for outer space that re-think fundamental design principles such as drape, high fashion has experimented with new possibilities for weightlessness that extend far beyond the 1960s vision of Space Age metallic fabrics and helmet-style headwear. Brownie takes the reader on a fascinating journey from fantasy to function and to form, deepening our understanding of this new category of fashion that is prompting new approaches to garment design and construction both on earth and in outer space.

Launching an inquiry into the future of dressing, Brownie asks how clothing technologies might evolve in response to microgravity and extreme environments, and how even fashion could be transformed as civilization advances to populate spacecraft and other planets. Through its radical leaps of perspective Spacewear alerts us to impending existential changes in our self-awareness as embodied beings.

Vorwort
Explores space and fashion in the 21st century by analysing style-conscious engineering for outer space garments alongside high fashion's experiments with weightlessness and new design principles on the catwalk

Autorentext
Barbara Brownie is Assistant Dean at the Royal College of Art, UK. She investigates the potential for space as a site for creative practice through research and collaborations within the arts and spaceflight industries. Her last book, Spacewear (Bloomsbury, 2019) explored the effects of microgravity on the dressed body.****

Inhalt

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: The final frontier of fashion

Chapter 1: Space Style
The First Space Race
The Commercial Space Age
The Art and Design Legacy of the Space Age

Chapter 2: Weightlessness on (and above) the catwalk
Suspension and rigged displays
Floating fashion
Free-falling fashion models

Chapter 3: Commercial Spacewear
Form, function, and fantasy
Suiting the space tourist
Off-the-shelf and out-of-this-world

Chapter 4: The Clothed Body in Microgravity
'One small step': Movement in microgravity
Posture, shape and the weightless body
Drape in weightlessness

Conclusion: Designing post-gravity fashion

Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index