Jul 2, 2009 11:24 AM
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San Francisco, 4:58 AM
Wed Feb 10
25 posts in the last 24 hours
It's no secret that mainstream fashion has welcomed retro scifi with open arms. So why doesn't that love get reciprocated, so we can get some style going in the biggest genre blockbusters?
Recently, sci-fi has come under fire in certain circles for its lack of innovation in costume design. But meanwhile, the fashion world is eating up scifi frills. Just the other night at the BET awards, I was struck by the sheer amount of crazy buckles and unnecessary straps of sparkle, metal and nylon gracing the red carpet. We've noted before that retro robots seem to be dominating the catwalks nowadays.
While current upscale fashion seems to have fully embraced its inner Mad Max, the Financial Times' Peter Gutierrez touched upon lack of visual appeal in one of the biggest genre films to come out this year: Star Trek. While one could easily argue that Star Trek was merely attempting to adhere to the fashion established by the original series how can one forget things like this?
Or this? It's pretty obvious that Trek has created some…interesting spacewear, so why is it so drab now? Even the green girls of today aren't as exciting as those of yesteryear.
In a lot of ways genre films have struggled to become a legitimate category, and in its pursuit, it seems to believe that one cannot be taken seriously when you look like this.
So, now we've thrown camp aside for the sake of mainstream acceptance and we want our realistic sci-fi. No more space babes with foil bikinis - it's all tank tops, business attire and military jumpsuits.
Scifi fashion has forgotten its roots, and now it's being taken up as irony chic by fashionistas who wouldn't touch your very favorite episode of Farscape with a ten-foot pole. While I love the recent trend of realism in my sci-fi, I miss the wacky colors and unique use of latex in the stuff of old. This new streak of science fiction (like most streaks) is merely a trend and will probably swing back sometime with the right film. I'm holding out hope for new Bruce Willis flick Surrogates . It looks cool and all, but Bruce - can you get back to the basics? No, not ‘Yippie kay yay' basics, but ‘Mila Jovovich wearing band aids and battling aliens' basics. You know Chris Tucker could use the work, and I'm always looking for Halloween costume ideas.
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