It seems like I’ve been waiting for the clothes of the future for a long time. All my life, actually. And I’m getting impatient.

Caftans

My idea of the clothes of the future was no doubt colored by my early watching of Star Trek. No, not the crew uniforms–those were absurd to me, even at age nine–but when the ship made a stop at the planet Vulcan when a tortured Spock went into season needed to go upstream and spawn or whatever? (Amok Time). I remembered those Vulcans were wearing the clothes of the future. However, having googled the clothes, they are not at all as I remember them–the clothes I’m thinking of came in the later movies.

So flowing. So easy. Long. Unisex. Caftanesque. Tastefully trimmed, carefully draped.

Wouldn’t we all, if given a chance, adopt these particular clothes of the future?

It turns out, probably not.

Friends weigh in

So imagine my surprise when I was out to lunch with three friends and I brought up this whole idea of futuristic clothing and what it would look like, and I got widely differing responses.

One friend said he thought the clothing of the future would be technical and responsive. If the weather changed, or you gained or lost weight, the clothing would simply adjust. This friend has lost weight this year and had to keep going “shopping” in his stored clothes to find things that fit him on the way down. So of course he liked the idea of something that would simply adjust itself to a slimmer frame.

Another friend loved the idea of reactive clothing, but he thought it would also be style-reactive. Which kind of blew my mind. I mean, here I am, imagining these lovely subdued flowy things, like Madame Gres with slightly less fabric, and and he’s imagining a world where we would easily sprout peacock feathers if we wanted to! And of COURSE people would want to. Not everyone wants to blend in with the walls. Garments would flame with embellishment and color as desired. Like we were all living in the Capitol.

All this gleeful frippery, these mods and makeups, not. I am not of the Capitol. I am a fan of the black and the charcoal and the neutral and the plain, enlivened by a shot of aubergine or teal now and then. On the day to day, I could wear black, grey and camel all the time and hardly miss colors at all. Which means I have a sort of a grimly dystopian idea of clothing of the future.

Ripley

I remember being super impressed with Ripley’s Nostromo jumpsuit in Aliens.

At the time, it struck me as functional, customizable, unisex, practical. I was all over it. Now I’m wondering what all that lacing is for. Would we specifically want the fabric over our tummies to be tightened down, a la Scarlett O’Hara getting laced up before the ball? Would Spandex not work in outer space or something? And as functional as it seems, we always end up back at the primary question with jumpsuits–how do you go to the bathroom quickly? These are important questions, but man, did it ever seem “real” to me when that movie came out.

Plain and simple

I also liked the clothing in The Giver, believe it or not.

Isn’t that depressing? it’s like, the Amish wardrobe of the future. All homespun and indigo.

I could so go for this!

Another woman weighs in

The other woman at our lunch gathering had similar ideas to my original caftan ideas. Long, graceful, easy, and with hidden pockets. Weatherproof. Soil-proof. One and done, but she envisioned these garments as metallic. Metallic seems like a stretch for me. But I could do metallic if I needed to. If it were necessary. Especially if it looked like THIS.

I would so love that! That is a beautiful handling of color and metallic and style. But is it futuristic? Also, I wonder what would happen if I began sweeping around Portland dressed like this. People would probably think I was trying to start a religious cult.

Fashion Babel

If you had the opportunity to design a clothing sensibility for the future, what would it look like? Would it be implanted peacock feathers or unisex jumpsuits? I guess the mistake we make is that somehow, in the future, clothing will gather up under one unified umbrella and fashion will flow from a single source. I think the opposite will probably happen. We will all get to wear what we want.

It’s going to be fashion Babel.