Knitted Robots

I thought that you might like to see this collection of Knitted Robots

Merry Christmas

No wash Cotton ( or should that read self cleaning)

One of the major issues in space is having to expensively upload clean clothing (this in the physical sense, as we do not use avatars to run our space hotels,pizza parlours or even tourists) as no one has really sorted out how to wash clothes...

even worse is that all the dirty clothing, gets put into one of the supply rockets, along with all the other rubbish and shot back towards earth to burn up in the atmosphere. Hmm not very green I hear you thinking... However moves are being made in China to produce cotton garments coated with Titanium Dioxide which when exposed to sunlight eats odours and stains. The full article on the BBC is here.

The Japanese have also got in on the act with antibacterial underware entitled J-Ware tested in 2009 and designed and researched by the "Near-Future Space-Living Unit" group led by Prof. Yoshiko Taya of Japan Women's University.

All of these things may seem a little far fetched  but if people are going to be working on the moon or in floating orbital hotels these issues are going to be critical, Mega rich tourists will not wish to be served by hosts and hostesses with BO

The Sky's Dark Labyrinth by Stuart Clark

Welcome to the blog tour of Stuart Clarks Dark Labyrinth

The cover

The lecture

The movie

Dr Stuart Clarks website

Click here to buy from Amazon

Follow on Twitter @DrStuClark

I was not a great fan of historical novels until I was introduced to Stuart Clark at the Borders book Festival last year. We were attempting to look at the stars but it was absoloutely teeming down and Stuart was giving a tour de force lecture about his new book the The Sky's Dark Labyrinth.
It gripped me from there and I was so pleased to be allowed to review it for you as part of the 2011 blog tour to promote the book.
The book covers all of the great things that a novel should: wine, beer, food, sex, politics and religion (not neccesarily in that order) It follows the struggle by an ace mathmetician Johannes Kepler to prove that in actual fact the earth moves round the sun and not that the heavens were moved by angels. Keppler is a down at heel character who is often sickly, poor and really quite arrogant about his own superiority and never suffers fools gladly.
The man seems to believe that the world owes him a living and really is quite an objectionable guest to whom so ever offers him a leg up or even offers him a bed.
Keppler is always being pushed by his wife to make something of himself and at one stage resorts to telling peoples horoscopes to make some money so that his housekeeper can buy some food.
Alongside this arrogant mathmeticians minutiae of life, illness and the day to day grind, is interwoven political and religious intrigue with Cardinals, Jesuits and Lutherans at odds with each other, vying for power across a divided Europe. The Inquisition gets a mention, along with great descriptions of  how earth shatteringly stupid religion can be if looked at through our distant eyes.
This is not just a novel but also a history of mathematics and how we eventually came to realise that the Earth is not the centre of the Universe.
A great read and I recommend that you go and buy it as soon as you can.
I cannot wait for installments 2 and 3

Dava Newman from MIT talks about the "Bio Suit"

Some really interesting insights into what we might be wearing in space. Dava Newman is an engineer working with NASA at MIT in America.
Is this fashion?
Possibly but it is definitely looking at materials and technologies that could influence how we might design fashion for space.

Dervishes in space

Produced by Riese Farbaute / riese-farbaute.de
Directed by Cristian Straub / cristianstraub.com
Director of Photography: Jakob Suess / jakobsuess.de
Camera Assistants: Sebastian Keim, Jonas Schaul
Gaffer: Max Toennis
DIT: Paul Spengemann
Lighting: Jonas Link, Niklas Bastian
Hair&Make-Up: Marianna Mukuchyan @ Optix Agency
Styling: Louisa Ritter-Witt @ Profiteam, Hamburg
Styling Assistant: Aylin Alp
Model: Mara Declair @ PMA Models
Set Photography: Elena Getzieh
First AD: Inna Knaus
Set Organisation: Rike Hoppse
Set Design: Kevin Paulsen
Props: Hang Aoki
Music: Envitre, Cristian Straub
Sound Design & Mixing: Pablo Paolo Kilian
Title Animation: Daniele Manoli
Photography by Elena Getzieh
MORE information at www.riese-farbaute.deProduced by Riese Farbaute / riese-farbaute.de
Directed by Cristian Straub / cristianstraub.com
Director of Photography: Jakob Suess / jakobsuess.de
Camera Assistants: Sebastian Keim, Jonas Schaul
Gaffer: Max Toennis
DIT: Paul Spengemann
Lighting: Jonas Link, Niklas Bastian
Hair&Make-Up: Marianna Mukuchyan @ Optix Agency
Styling: Louisa Ritter-Witt @ Profiteam, Hamburg
Styling Assistant: Aylin Alp
Model: Mara Declair @ PMA Models
Set Photography: Elena Getzieh
First AD: Inna Knaus
Set Organisation: Rike Hoppse
Set Design: Kevin Paulsen
Props: Hang Aoki
Music: Envitre, Cristian Straub
Sound Design & Mixing: Pablo Paolo Kilian
Title Animation: Daniele Manoli
Photography by Elena Getzieh
MORE information at http://www.riese-farbaute.de/

Sun bathing

I wonder when we get into space and have all of this leisure time in our floating space hotel will we sunbathe and what will we wear? maybe the following images will give us some clues.

imaginary-man

I met Esther at a fashion conference in London in September and I think that if you have visited my blog you may be very interested in visiting hers

Biomimetics

This is a new area of research looking at how nature does things and then attempting to copy the technology, technique, material in new and interesting applications....

I think that these materials will also be important in my design and development process.

Carbon nano tubes could provide invisibility to 3d objects

I am starting to realsie that I am working in a field of very interesting materials, that could be applied in a new way to space couture. This article is on the BBC and talks about how carbon nano tubes applied to the surface of 3D objects may turn them invisible by bending light around an object.
It seems like a great opportunity to create garments that seem to not be there....

Space Vacation: Orbiting Hotel Ready For Guests by 2016 [PICS]

Space Vacation: Orbiting Hotel Ready For Guests by 2016 [PICS]

So here we are but what are the staff and guests going to wear? I am currently writing a paper on this subject so pop back to see more...

Robert Kaufman Space Fabrics

I discovered Robert Kaufman fabrics whilst on an on this earth vacation in St Ives in Cornwall. Doing some on this earth surfing! unlike the waitress from the Diner,  who seems as we know from my previous posts to not need any protection from the rigours of space.

I will be coming back to the uniforms of people who will be working in space.

Rocket man

1972 and John Elton ( as we all know a style icon with a slightly theatrical vision of fashion ) in an early  grand piano special....

Calling occupants Of Interplanetary Craft 1977

The Carpenters released this classic in 1977...enjoying a brief late 70s out of this world moment.
The aliens look like great fashion models and the polo necked DJ is so bang on for the fashion zeitgeist.

HaptiHug – affective garment hugs you

HaptiHug – affective garment hugs you
This is a really interesting development in the remote controlling of garments which could have implications for long distance or long time based wearers.

Techno Textiles

These books are also really good discussions on textile innovations, the first techno textiles book was published in 1999 telling us that we are well down the road to exploring the technical issues surrounding technical textiles.



These two books give great areas of new innovative fashion soloutions for space....

Extreme textiles

I have added this book because it is a really interesting starting point for exciting and relevant textiles that could be translated into space-couture. Grab yourself a copy and explore.....

Why are the heroines wearing very little clothes, do they not feel the cold ?

I am sure that it is because women are stronger than men and don't need to be protected from the rigours of space.....or is it because most of the science fiction audience are men?  hmm no flames please as next we will be looking at how men are portrayed as militaristic and all conquering...another unlikely scenario...

Space hostesses...

"2001 a space oddessy" 1968

"2001 a space oddessy" 1968

"The fifth element" designer Jean Paul Gaultier 1997

Both films look forward into the future and start to look at what workers in space, looking after the tourists, might wear. Again we get the impression that skin tight or very tailored is the way to go...

Hmm I wonder which hostess I would like to be looked after?

Comments below...

And here is another...

Oh I lost my heart to a starship trooper ....or in this case was it the hot gossip girls in the cat suits and silver tabard dresses.....
Top of the pops in the late 70s (this is 1978) was not only on the pulse with regards to music, but fashion as well....
Play it again girls......oh and I think that there are some boys as well...

Some music appropriate for space couture

MMM
I just love these skin tight silver cat suits.
In 1979 did we really think they were: A.. trendy and B...what we would all wear in space?
Oh go on play it again! Ladies and Gentlemen..... I give you.....Sheila B Devotion and Spacer from 1979

Richard Hayman the look of love Space age fashion

A strange take on the "beautiful woman murders a man in a suit" genre but the space age fashions are the star....

Underwater Fashion photography

I was having a very interesting talk to the designer of the last three star wars film costumes and the discussion turned to whether underwater fashion would give some clues as to how space fashion might function....
So I went off to You tube and started to look at underwater fashion....
Here are some examples:

Whilst the subject matter can be a bit suspect ( you might wish to look on YouTube at underwater photography!) I think that it starts us down the road to try to start to understand about the way fabric moves under non standard conditions.

Space Couture and Space Suits

What is the difference?
Well a space suit will protect your body from disintegrating in the hard vacuum of space ( not a pretty sight I understand).
Space couture or space fashion is something that you wear in a controlled environment (say an 8 star or should that be an unimaginably big number of stars? space hotel) and you want to look as good as the enormous amount of money you have spent getting there.
So as this blog  and my research develops maybe we will be able to delve into the magic of smart materials, the comfort of classic fibres such as cashmere, and the amazing opportunities for new and challenging silhouettes that respond to light, radiation, minmal or no gravity and the thoughts of the human inhabiting them.

Paco Rabanne

Paco finally hits the blog with some backstage action from 1969.....

Some more beautiful Courreges

1968 the height of Space fever, beautiful symetrical clean fashion.  Courreges hits it just right .....

Russian space couture

This is a report on a russian space suit 

Japanese space fashion show

News report on Japanese space fashion show

NASA Mobility tests for space suit prototypes

This video features archival NASA footage of mobility tests for several spacesuit prototypes.

Another space suits book

This is another really interesting book which looks at the technology of space suits

New book "Spacesuit: fashioning Apollo"

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/25/134855907/How-To-Dress-For-Space-Travel
A really interesting article by Professor NICHOLAS DE MONCHAUX (University of California)
where he talks about the spacesuits of the Apollo missions....


Review from Amazon:

"Woven, as befits its topic, with multiple and colored threads borrowed from an astounding variety of fields and domains--technology, politics, media, and fashion design, to name only a few--this path-breaking book provides an innovative reading of the space race. Above all, it illuminates the relevance of this race for designers from yesterday and today." --Antoine Picon, G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology, Harvard Graduate School of Design "A layered tour through the interwoven histories of spaceflight and its clothing, rethinking the body's technologies in the cybernetic era. The first sartorial history of spaceflight!" --David Mindell, Director, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, MIT, and author, Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight "This surely is one of the most deeply researched books on design ever written. De Monchaux follows the history of--among other things--fashion, space travel, politics, and architecture to demonstrate an astonishing relationship between what the Apollo astronauts wore and the design of the built environment." --Ralph Caplan, author of By Design: Why There Are No Locks on the Bathroom Doors in the Hotel Louis XIV and Other Object Lessons, and and 2010 recipient of the Smithsonian's "Design Mind" National Design Award "Nicholas de Monchaux offers in this remarkable book a far-reaching and broad-based analysis of the spacesuit, interpreting it as far more than a functional garment protecting astronauts: as an artifact at the nexus of society, science, and spacefaring. Far from the internalist histories so common for NASA, de Monchaux ranges from popular culture to technology to advertising to art, in the process illuminating the subtleties of construction and use of this individualized spacesuit." --Roger D. Launius, Senior Curator, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum "A veritable fantastic voyage! Not only along the intricate and incredible journey that it turns out links brassiere to stratosphere, but deep inside the ether wherein architecture and fashion form the nebulae of contemporary life. Combining humor and lightness with exacting attention to detail, de Monchaux's book offers a new model of scholarship that revises our view of technology as a hard instrument of science and gently reveals it to be part of the vast flux of cultural production." --Sylvia Lavin, Director of Critical Studies, Architecture and Urban Design, UCLA

To buy the book on Amazon 

Mark Timmins talking about Space couture

A snap shot of a paper presentation at the less remote Arts and Humanities strand of the World Aeronautical Conference in 2008
Live link

Flash Gordon 1935

This is what we thought fashion in space might be in 1935

A very interesting shorts, belt and Bavarian influenced skin tight long sleeved jersey top. The dress is cut away at the back ( a more fashion forward statement than practical everyday wear)  as well as the beautiful hair....

Compare this to princess Leia

Hmm probably 70 years seperating them but still fancy hair and fashion forward...

Gravity

One of the critical things about space is gravity or rather the lack of it. in space we either have micro gravity ie on the moon or zero gravity in the international space station. Both states mean that things happen differently to your clothes than on earth.
In Micro gravity drape works really slowly at about 1/10th of the speed on earth..(interesting things to play with)
In Zero gravity drape does not happen at all (Even more interesting things to play with).
So what will we wear?

EMANUEL UNGARO et al. 1967 + Music by The Brass Ring

"Catwalk" by Pete Moore. Mod, groovy 1960s fashion show from Polly Maggoo.

Paco Rabanne - Himself and Fashion Show 60's

Space-Age Futurism Fashion Mort Garson 60's