Brooklyn Museum
This look is now showcased in Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition called Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion, together with other looks from Pierre Cardin’s 1966 Cosmocorps collection. (Brooklyn Museum, 2019) During the 1960s, with the leaping development of spaceflight technology, people were optimistic about the future and outer space. So did Pierre Cardin, he designed those space uniform for future people to wear when living on Mars or moon. (Friedman, 2019) The Cosmocorps collection includes black unitards worn as foundation garment under collarless vests, dresses, jackets, and skirts, by both men and women. (Schapiro, 2019) Susan Kaiser mentioned the space theorist Henri Lefebvre’s idea about the relationship of time and space in her book Fashion and Cultural Studies that: “Time is known and actualized in space, becoming a social reality by virtue of a spatial practice. Similarly, space is known only in and through time” (Kaiser, 2012) Time and space are intertwined with each other and cannot be separated. Pierre Cardin’s Cosmocorps collection totally epitomized the space age during the 1960s. The Space Race between the US and the Soviet Union produced rapid advances in rocketry, computers, and materials science. People’s desire of exploring outer space and future could be revealed through the increasing space movies during that time. The idea of “futuristic” design became very popular and for fashion, this style phenomenon could be found in those space-related fashion photography. (The Museum at FIT, 2017) This yellow dress with black unitards shows Pierre Cardin’s clean, minimalist, streamlined design aesthetic which caught the essence of the futuristic and at the same time echoed the optimism of youth wave of that time. (Farago, 2019) And for me, this look, in the context of present, corresponds to today’s gender-neutral trend together with others looks in his Cosmocorps collection. Since they share the same cuts, silhouette, and fabric for both menswear and womenswear. (Farago, 2019) And the modernity brought by this dress suits today’s minimalist trend.
Bibliography:
1.Kaiser, Susan. 2012. Fashion and Culture studies. London; New York: Berg.
2.Schapiro, Meyer. Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion. Brooklyn Museum. 2019. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/pierre_cardin
3. The Museum at FIT. Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme. 2017. https://exhibitions.fitnyc.edu/expedition/creating-expedition-fashion-from-the-extreme/#more-32
4. Farago, Jason. Pierre Cardin’s Space-Age Fashion Takes Us Back to the Future. The New York Times. August 22, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/arts/design/pierre-cardin-brooklyn-museum-review.html?auth=login-google&login=google
5.Friedman, Yael. Pierre Cardin designed uniforms for the Moon. The 1843. August 16, 2019. https://www.1843magazine.com/culture/look-closer/pierre-cardin-the-designer-who-created-clothes-fit-for-the-moon
