I wondered why this paper fashion line would design and sell a galaxy-inspired plastic garment that was advertised as a product of one’s garbage can scraps.Įarly examples of paper dresses from the Scott Paper Co. Perhaps the most uncanny aspect of the packaging is the sizing chart, which reads, “Teeny: 4-6, Tiny: 8-10, Bigger: 12-14, Biggest: 16-18.” A clear indicator of the drastically different beauty standards in the 60s, this sizing chart, along with the the garment’s collection name, markets the dress in an almost comical and entertaining manner. Splashed across the top of the label, next to a caricature of a figure glistening in the metallic gown, read “NEW! From The… ‘Waste Basket Boutique’ Collection, The Silverfoil Floor Length Dress.” “Mars of Asheville,” the brand, instructed the wearer to press the gown with a cool iron and shorten it with scissors after all, it is a disposable garment. The metallic plastic almost appears to have a crocodile-skin texture upon close inspection.Īs I stared at this Space Age floor-length paper gown, the labels on the packing were almost as puzzling and abnormal as the garment itself. There are two loose straps on both the left and the right side of the dress, in both the front and the back, allowing for multiple ways of creating strap ties or bows. There are darts from the side seam to bust but no other stitches, folds, or hems.
This tubular metallic gown was made of metallic plastic that is essentially a disposable crêpe paper. Perplexed by the unexpected texture in a sea of neon, geometric patterns and retro silhouettes, I pulled out a floor-length, aluminum foil gown wrapped in a crinkled plastic coating. And only a few, like a “light-up” dress with an LED tube sewn onto the chest, have the daffy futurism of the Cosmocorps.As my fingers skimmed through the funky, pattern-clad dresses hanging from the 1960s aisle in the Cornell Costume and Textile Collection, they suddenly halted when landing upon a rough metallic material.
None of these ensembles, presented together in a pin-lit gallery meant to evoke a sky full of stars, displays any of the exacting craftsmanship that Issey Miyake or Hussein Chalayan would bring to body-disguising gowns. He is hung up on stretchy fabrics shaped by stiff hoops one dress of black jersey incorporates six parallel rings, spaced out from the waist to the feet, that give it the look of a collapsible laundry hamper. Cardin’s evening gowns are tacky and uncreative. A man’s jumpsuit of teal wool felt features a leather thong worn over the trousers: one part Superman, two parts Tom of Finland.Įspecially when compared to the day wear, most of Mr.
Other outfits from the late ’60s are rather less unisex, like a “porthole” dress with cutout nipples. Cardin proposed a sleek, forward-dawning fashion that sometimes dissolved gender distinctions - above all in his “Cosmocorps” collections of the mid-1960s, whose zipped sweaters and belted jumpsuits could be worn by men and women. Like his colleagues André Courrèges and Mary Quant, Mr. Cardin designed in a young, newly prosperous Paris, seen here on mannequins as well as in photographs and films of Jeanne Moreau, Mia Farrow and the cast of “Star Trek.” Some are chic, many are risible all of it has an exuberant view of the future that marks it as decidedly from the past. But its core are the space-age outfits that Mr. With 85 ensembles, the earliest dating from 1953 and the most recent from this decade, “Future Fashion” is not, strictly speaking, another ’60s show. Cardin’s stretchy knits and swooping miniskirts. The Concorde was flying, Françoise Hardy and Joe Dassin were singing and women (and men) cruised the Left Bank in Mr. “ Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion,” now on view at the Brooklyn Museum, offers a swinging reintroduction to Parisian style in the 1960s and 1970s, when the New Look gave way to thigh-high boots and dresses of heat-molded synthetics. This country had no monopoly on grooviness. But well beyond our borders, before the 1973 oil crisis tanked the global economy, other countries were partying and protesting just as hard, and a youth culture of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll spanned the globe. It seems Americans can’t get enough of the era, and the optimism that percolated amid great social upheaval. and Neil Armstrong, Woodstock and the Manson murders. Our museums, movies and magazines have been on a yearslong binge of ’60s nostalgia, pegged to a rolling sequence of 50th anniversaries: the Rev.