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Adamson, Thomas. “Comeback Kid Pierre Cardin.” Metro, Metro UK, 4 Dec. 2012, metro.co.uk/2012/07/01/comeback-kid-pierre-cardin-returns-with-space-age-themed-catwalk-show-487505/.

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History.com Staff. “The Space Race.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2010, www.history.com/topics/space-race.

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Menkis, Suzy. “Pierre Cardin: a Museum from Fashion's Futurist.” Vogue, Vogue English, 17 Nov. 2014, en.vogue.fr/suzy-menkes/suzy-menkes-column/articles/suzy-menkes-pierre-cardin-a-museum-from-fashions-futurist/23373.

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“Pierre Cardin.” Victoria and Albert Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum Online , 23 Apr. 2013, www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/pierre-cardin/.

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“The Space Race.” Victoria and Albert Museum, Digital Media, Victoria and Albert Museum, 31 Jan. 2013, www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-space-race/.

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Post World War II, the Cold War was a major international conflict taking place in the second half of the twentieth century.  It’s two major combatants were the two most influential nations at the time, the United States and the Soviet Union.  While the American democracy and communist Russia were physically at war, the space race of the 1960’s came into play.  The space race kicked off upon Russia’s ability to send the first satellite, Sputnik, into space.  This intimidated America due to the fact that the nation grew paranoid of Russias possible ability to send nuclear bombs.  As a result of this, the United States initiated their involvement with outer space since the country felt the need to prove superiority over Russia, who was winning the space race.  In 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced America’s mission to safely get a man to step foot on the moon.  Eventually, Neil Armstrong, an American astronaut, completed the country’s goal by arriving on the moon in 1969.  Although the space race concerned extraterrestrial experts and technological geniuses, the masses also became heavily involved.  The media covered every aspect of Neil Armstrong’s journey, and the absurd thought of getting a man on the moon intrigued a plethora of people who were fascinated by adventure.  During this time, curiosity filled the minds of millions, therefore, the whole world was watching when America successfully completed its most sought-after mission.  Neil Armstrong’s famous line, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” held true while inspiring both simple and complex aspects of technology for the following years.

With technology advances, people across the globe began to envision a stereotypical futuristic world in which everything is chrome, cars are flying, and people are relying on devices to perform mundane tasks.  Due to the plethora of tele-towers being constructed on the earth’s surface, communication through thin air became possible.  Wavelengths and frequencies were now capable of producing the illusion of a movie theater at in-home televisions.  Separation by distance no longer limited communication due to telephones.  This was all so new and unimaginable a decade prior, so people speculated a futuristic world that resembled the 1960’s cartoon: The Jetsons.  The futuristic attitude of the space age defined design of architecture, fashion, graphic design, furniture, automobiles, and more disciplines during it’s time.

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Pierre Cardin was a French man, born in Italy during 1922.  While his wealthy family wanted him to pursue an architectural career, he always had a passion for fashion.  At the young age of fourteen, Cardin got his first job as a clothier’s apprentice, where he learned the basic and fundamental principals of fashion design.  By 17 years old, he began constructing women’s suits for a tailor who he was employed to.  In 1945, the 23-year-old Cardin moved to Paris, one of the world’s most influential cities on fashion.  There, he worked for famous designers such as Jeanne Paquin, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Christian Dior.  He was able to absorb an abundance of knowledge from these highly influential designers, and ultimately founded his own house of designs in 1950.  Like most people during the second half of the twentieth-century, Pierre Cardin had a thirst for adventure.  He was enchanted by the space race, and visited the NASA space station in 1970, where he became the only man in history to try on Neil Armstrong’s original space suit.  This experience certainly inspired his space age clothing designs, which grew to furniture design as well in 1975.

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The cosmos day ensemble by Pierre Cardin was fabricated in 1967 and it is currently located in the Victoria and Albert Museum.  It features the high contrast of black and red colors, similarly seen in the outfits of the Star Trek characters.  The loosely-fitting dress is rectangular in shape, ignoring the female form.  Meanwhile, circular motifs are featured on the chest alongside a thick, black line.  The use of geometric shapes in fashion is an important characteristic of the space age.  As people used to take the organic shapes of nature into account, the sixties was a time for realization that planets as a whole were spherical while spacecrafts were carefully crafted by engineers with a geometric mind.  The knee-high boots in this outfit are constructed of a shiny vinyl material, commonly used in the space-age to mimic the look and feel of manmade plastic.  Additionally, the helmet and visor combination was intended to be reminiscent of an astronaut’s helmet that is part of his spacesuit.  It’s clear that Pierre Cardin drew inspiration from the culture of the space age in his designs through materials, colors, and shapes.

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Pierre Cardin designed this huge, metallic necklace in 1969.  It displays a ladder-like design of seven rectangular pieces that get increasingly smaller from the bottom up.  This evokes a sense of upwards movement, similar to the movement of spacecrafts from the earth to the sky.  The collar of the necklace is a chunky circle that tightly wraps around the neck.  The theme of choking the neck recurs often in the space-age, with tight necklaces and turtlenecks.  I think this symbolized the concept of not breathing in the oxygen-lacking environment of space.  The metallic finish of the necklace serves the purpose of inducing feelings of the future, where everyone imagined the world drenched in chrome.

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In my opinion, the space age is a fascinating time for sure.  The transformation from late Victorian fashion at the beginning of the century, to the advanced futuristic style of the 1960’s is incredible.  In a mere six decades, European fashion went from the traditional corset and dress combination to an assortment of outer-space inspired jumpsuits and dresses with little regard for the female figure.  Such outer-space style was incredible for sure, and the design of that decade was a direct response to technological advancements and societal strides made by the whole world.  Pierre Cardin made a space-aged comeback in 2013, when he put on a runway show featuring 138 different looks inspired by his space age collection dating back to over fifty years ago.  Pictured below, the runway models are sporting bright colored dresses, with different pattens of rings that encase each woman’s legs.  The repetition of the rings at the bottom of the dress tend to mimic the blasting-off movement depicted by rocket ships and space crafts.  I think it’s quite iconic that the space-themed designs of Pierre Cardin are still relevant today.  In today’s world of haute couture, literally anything goes.  The runway fashion of the twenty-first century has become increasingly more abstract and ridiculous, therefore, it’s important to recognize where the fun, creative, impractical roots of fashion design stemmed from.