Initially, couture and the world of sci-fi might not seem to have much overlap. But, of course there is an exception for the fact that both of these are rarefied realms that comes with obsessive devoted who further father periodically with Comic Con-level enthusiasm, and also the point where the minutest are fixated upon endlessly. But that is exactly where the similarities come to an end. And, this is the reason why it was such a delightful surprise to see the references that are typically reserved for D&D table pop up at the most recent couture shows.
Take Fendi, where the house’s home city was cited by Kim Jones as his main inspiration, but further also dew on the Dune and Star Wars’ dune. Recently, Jones made his way through the behemoth based on 800 pages that is the book by Frank Herbert, and it was told by him to WWD that he always loved Star Wars and even now he has got Star Wars toys all over his study (Source: Elle Magazine).
Daniel Roseberry of Schiaparelli was another Dune convert who with his first physical show since the beginning of pandemic took the house’s trademark Surrealism in a sci-fi direction. It was explained by Roseberry that in his show notes that after two years of thinking about the Surreal, he found himself instead of thinking about the empyreal: From the chaos of our planet, the heavens taken as a place to escape, but also mythical high priestess’ home, at once an alien and goddess who maybe in fact walk among us. His alien goddesses around their wrists and heads wore massive disks or Barbarella-by-way-of-Madonna pointy breastplates; a Saturn-like ring of golf that literally orbited one of the models (Source: Elle Magazine).
Science fiction could be considered as an ultimate escapist genre. With the recent Dune’s remake, the latest chapter in the Matrix saga, and like After Yang the upcoming releases, it is expected by us to be in a boom time for the genre at multiplex. Right now, for moviegoers, the appeal for imagining alternate worlds hardly needs an explanation – for designers who has one job in a sense for further creating their own fantasy realms.
But, for all its escapism, science fiction has also smuggled in metaphors for our existence’s some of the darkest parts, from climate change to American imperialism. When the imagination of the future comes as feeling so charged, sometimes it comes as a comfort to go back to rosier past visions of what it is going to be like. While Roseberry and Jones delved into the planetary darkness as well as this time’s uncertainty, to a more optimistic era there was a journey made by the other couture collections to a more optimistic era, that is namely as the ‘60’s embrace of space travel and also the design of its attendant Space Age design (Source: Elle Magazine).
The ‘60’s-fest that was seen at spring 2022 ready-to-wear seem to be continued here, with the space cadet cutout leggings at Valentino, with Mod white suits at Dior, and a ruffled gown at Giambattista Valli that was spliced together with a silver leg – Princess Leia meeting C-4PO.
