Imaginary Worlds - Sci-Fi Walks the Runway

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

When sci-fi movies take a big swing in depicting futuristic fashion, sometimes they end up creating iconic outfits and other times they create fashion which looks laughably outdated in a few years. I���ve became fascinated by three fashion designers whose work took center stage in sci-fi films and transcended the films themselves. I talk with fashion historians and authors Raissa Bretaña and Thèresa Winge about the influence of Paco Rabanne on Barbarella, the work of Jean-Paul Gaultier on The Fifth Element and the way Alexander McQueen was influenced by dystopian sci-fi, which informed the McQueen style in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Each of these collaborations left a lasting impact on cinema and fashion, from the runway to the shopping mall.  Thèresa's book Fashion Adventures in Science Fiction Cinema comes out in December. This episode is sponsored by Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to Quince.com/imaginary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We are the Honegin. No, no than it? And Google us. From the underworld of Guy Ritchie. Do you want to step up the ladder? I won't call him dead. Starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. Do I have to do everything myself?

You want to want? I'll give you a... Glad. New season hits September 18th on Paramount Plus. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them, and why we suspend or disbelief. I'm Eric Malinski. I remember in 2019, people were posting images

the Blade Runner and saying something like, this is what we'll all be wearing this year. 2019 is the year that Blade Runner took place. I saw similar memes in 2015 with Back to the Future Part 2. That was the year Marty McFly traveled to and saw his future self wearing two neckties at once, and futuristic teenagers were dressed like they were in a Mad Max roller derby. I often joke that nothing dates faster than the future, or our visions of the future. or our visions of the future. But sometimes fashion and science fiction is so cool.

People want to dress like that in the real world. The Matrix franchise inspired high-end fashion, streetwear, and even sunglasses. A lot of fashion designers are fans of science fiction. Theressa Wenge is the author of Fashion Adventures in Science Fiction Cinema. Her book is coming out in December. Having worked in fashion myself and I run an avant-garde fashion program at Michigan State University, there is this lovely connection between fashion and science fiction where you're looking to the future. I contacted Theressa because I was curious about her book.

And she told me about three legendary fashion designers whose work appeared in science fiction films. And I found these examples so fascinating because each of these. designers had been influenced by science fiction to begin with, and after their work appeared on screen, it changed what people wore in the real world. I want to delve into these three stories one at a time. Let's begin in the year 40,000 AD, or 1968. Meet the most beautiful creature of the future. Her name is Barabarella, and she makes science fiction something else.

Jane Fonda is Barbarilla. I had never seen Barbarella before I started working on this episode, but I had seen countless images of Jane Fonda looking incredible in those costumes. Each outfit is skin tight, revealing her bare legs or arms. some of the costumes have transparent sections that reveal other parts of her body, and the materials in the costumes really shimmer. The director of Barabarella was her husband at the time, Roger Vadim, and the movie feels like a love letter to her.

I did know one other thing about Barbarilla. The villain had a memorable name, or at least it's stuck in the minds of a New Wave band in the UK. Have you ever heard of a young scientist named the U.S.? Durand, Durand? Yes? Recently, while on a trip to the North Star, he vanished into the uncharted regions of Tao City.

Why is that a secret? Because Durand, Durand is the inventor of the positronic ray. Andi is hungry like the wolf. By the way, that exposition doesn't really matter. In fact, Barbarella is naked when she receives that intel. Right beforehand, she had slowly stripped out of her spacesuit while floating in zero gravity during the opening credits, while groovy music played in the background.

There's a real strong theme of sex running through the whole thing. Everybody is highly sexualized, through their dress, through their appearance, through their actions. There's even an orgasmic machine that Barabella gets trapped in and all of her clothes wind up getting cold off of her and so on. I love Barbarilla for many reasons. not the least of them is that I worship Jane Fonda. Raisa Britannia is a fashion historian and author.

But from a fashion perspective, I love Barbarella because it is so clear what came before it and what came after it. The costume designer on the film was Jacques Fonterre. But the fashion designer Paco Rabon was a big inspiration for the overall look of Barbarella. Rabon didn't have a lot to do with the film, but his name, and Barbarella were linked together for the rest of his life. It became twisted and convoluted over the years that everybody just assumed Paco Raban must have done everything. It is an easy thing to see how people got there because so many of the costumes look

like Paco Raban's fashion. Reisa says before Barbarilla, Paca Raban was well known for collections that he called 12 experimental dresses and 12 unwearable dresses. His clothes looked so futuristic, he got the nickname the Jules Verne of fashion. But she says looking at them today, they're clearly a classic example of space age design. Space age design is really informed by clean lines and geometry. Usually there's also kind of futuristic looking materials incorporated. So metallic materials, plastics, things that look like, you know, they're the fabrics,

of tomorrow. Compared to the costumes in Barbarella, the shapes of those unwearable dresses are surprisingly modest and traditional. What's groundbreaking is that the clothes were made of industrial materials like plastic discs and metal rings that Theressa says were not considered appropriate for high-end fashion at the time. The fact that he really embraced these brand new materials and textiles that most people weren't even aware of yet. That made his designs when they came down the runway truly look futuristic.

And the 60s were all about what's next, what's going to happen next, how is it going to look? The future's going to be very different than our past. Paco Raban does get on-screen credit for inspiring the outfit that Barabarella wears in the final sequence. Emergency systems.

And it's a green, scaly body suit that has small green, transparent squares embellishing the front, and then there are dangling pieces around the hips that kind of resemble a skirt. And she says the film actually influenced the clothes that Paco Raban designed after Barbarella. Some of the more chain mail type garments that he makes later on do actually resemble some of the costumes in Barbarella. all the materials that are used in that are these plastics, vinals, that will eventually become very common to see in fashion, particularly in the 80s. We see it happen in the late 70s and through the 80s into the 90s as well.

Then there's a revolt. People want natural fibers and whatever. We move away from it. So Barabarella did turn out to be the fashion of the future, at least for a while. But Raista says that look never really went away. Like Ariana Grande's break-free music video is like a love letter to Barabarella in the costumes and the zero-gravity strip tease that she does. But she also referenced Barbarella in the marketing campaign for her beauty brand. One of my favorite editorials in recent years was for Interview Magazine.

This was the Winter 2021 issue. where Zendaya is styled by La Roach, and each look is an homage to different costumes in Barbarella. It's funny because I tend to think of that design as being so late 60s. Like it's sort of like the kind of thing where it's kind of retro futuristic, like a much more daring version of the fashion on Star Trek, the original series. So it's interesting to know that it wasn't something that sort of had become really dated by, let's say, like 1980 something. No, on the contrary, I think that it feels very fresh and young right now. But also, I think there's a little wink that, you know, it says something about these artists that they're able to reference this campy movie from the 60s. But that element of camp, I actually think that camp rescues many films from obscurity.

But what is interesting, though, what is it about, because I know what you're saying, it's true. Like, why is it that when we look at, back the stuff that's really campy weirdly transcends its time more than a lot of the other stuff that was supposed to have been taken more quote unquote seriously in its own time. Maybe because it's more accessible, it requires a lower barrier of entry, but also I think people just identify with it more. Case in point, I will tell you a little narrative. So I taught a course at the Fashion Institute of Technology about costume and fashion in film. And I always looked forward to screening Barbarella. I loved to shock and amaze my students with this film.

The class had been taught by other instructors before me, has since been taught by other instructors after me, and the other instructors won't screen Barbarella, which I think is. a crime. I mean, why won't they screen it? They think it's too ridiculous or it's demeaning or too unsurious. But you cannot deny the fashion impact of that film, which is why I've become known on campus as like the girl that will make you watch Barbarella. Next, we're going to look at another film that is also Campy. And like Barbarella, it did not get a lot of critical respect when it came out. But it had an influence on fashion that we can still see today.

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That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash imaginary. While I was researching Barbarella, I also learned that the character had originally come from French comic books. Now, I knew there was a long history of French comic books, especially sci-fi comics, That's actually one of the reasons why I wanted to learn French.

A lot of those comics are not translated into English. The director, Luke Besson, is also a fan. And for his 1997 film The Fifth Element, he hired two of my favorite French comic book artists, Mobius and Jean-Claude Messier to work on concept art for the film. This movie is a visual and auditory feast. The plot is kind of beside the point. the point. But for context, the fifth element takes place in the 23rd century. Mila Jovovich

plays Lilo. She's a chosen one type figure who was on the run from alien and human villains. She teams up with a cab driver played by Bruce Willis. Although she doesn't really team up with him as much as jump out of a skyscraper and land on his flying car. You might remember me from the cab. Bada boom. Big Bada boom. Big Bada boom. Boom? Boom, big bottle boom in the cab here. Look, like I drive a cab, this is me. Corbin Dallas.

The costumes in the film were designed by Jean-Claude Gaultier. He's a legend in the fashion industry, and he's probably best known in the U.S. for designing cone-shaped bras, especially the ones that were worn by Madonna. Now, the French comic book artist who did the concept art already had a strong sense of character design. So I asked Raisa, where does she see Gautier's influence on the film? I think there are places where it is 1,000% Gautier.

And you definitely have to talk about the, I think, most memorable costume of the film, which is the very flamboyant leopard body suit worn by Chris Tucker as Ruby Rod. Here he is the one and only winner of the Jiminai Cricket Contest. This boy is fueled like fire. So start melting ladies because the boy is hotter than hot. He's hot. And that, I think, epitomizes Gautier's design sensibility. Because it's so subversive and overtly effeminate in a way that feels, I don't know, almost transgressive.

Theressa says the real struggle that Gautier had on the Fifth Element was the budget. Fashion designers are used to using the best fabrics, and it costs a lot of money to put together a fashion show, like millions of dollars for one fashion show. And so his biggest complaint about the fifth element was he had to design about a thousand outfits and that he couldn't buy the right materials. He couldn't get the funds that he wanted.

He literally, there's one interview where he says he dipped into his own private design stock for materials. because he wanted the look of the film to be cohesive. Gautier came of age around the same time as Barabella. She says you can see that sensibility in the costumes. Jean-Paul Gautier is a fan of science fiction, but a lot of his influences for his fashions tend to come out of the queer community.

Fifth Element allowed him to pull in things like his love of bright, highly dynamic contrasting colors. and he's constantly pushing silhouettes, particularly for male figures, but he loves all kinds of female body types. And that is not something you commonly see in a fashion designer. Interestingly, some of the most influential costumes in the film were not designed for mean characters.

Like at one point, Lelu and Dallas go on a space shuttle. That's more like a luxury cruise liner in space. Sweet dreams, Mr. Dallas. The flight attendants are, are wearing periwinkle blue uniforms that play with which areas of the costume reveal skin. The women are also wearing pillbox hats on top of white wigs in a bob cut. And the flight attendants uniforms are just lovely. They're really smartly designed and he had to fit them to those people very specifically.

And that I can tell by the way that they can move in them and everything that each actress, and these are not central characters had special fittings to make sure that those outfits looked exactly as they should. Now, this movie came out almost 30 years ago, but just this summer, Chapel Rhone wore an outfit at a music festival that was an homage to the flight attendant uniforms. She wrote on Instagram that wearing the outfit helped her live out her fifth element fantasy. Another breakout hit were the costumes worn by futuristic McDonald's employees. It's a short scene when a flying police car floats next to a drive-by window. Two golden menus. Thank you.

I'm too old, too tired, too hungry to go chasing something hot rod. Gautier plays with the designs of the golden arches on the women's hats and boostiers, and they're all wearing red wigs and a bob cut. when you think about the McDonald's uniform and how little bit of time it takes up in the film, it's remarkable that it's had such an impact to influence. I would say about five or six fashion designers. And I get it. Like I saw those costumes in the movie theater.

And my husband was sitting there like, oh, my God, they're so gorgeous. And afterwards he's like, the McDonald's uniforms. That was like, yes, yes, they were phenomenal. Reisa says another major designer who was influenced by that film is Jeremy Scott. His fall 2018 ready-to-wear collection was just a love letter to Fifth Element. And they were wearing kind of these day glow knitwear ensembles that had metallic outerwear and the crisscrossing harnesses. And so it's hard to look at the looks from that runway show and not think of Fifth Element. It's so obvious.

It's interesting to me that a fashion show from 2018 is something. Given I think a fashion is something that kind of literally, the whole point is it goes in and out of style pretty quickly, that people would then look back at a fashion show, a certain designer show from a certain year, the way that other people may look back at a movie. What is the influence of something like that? Like when he does a show like that in 2018, you know, in 2026, what is the legacy of a show like that? And why is it still something that you remember? It's funny. I've never actually heard of a collection being compared to a film, but now that you're saying it, that is how this information lives in my head. And I think these legendary collections, the one that live on, a lot of them exist outside of time. Like, I don't think there was anything particularly 2018 about that collection. But because it was referencing something that has now been considered a classic, then it's kind of, able to stand alone, which is why I maybe think a lot of designers are really mining references these days. It gives their work a bit more longevity.

The fashion of the Fifth Element didn't stay on the runway. Thoressa saw their influence in big box stores and shopping malls. The tank that both Lelu and Dallas wore, those showed up in virtually every store that sells T-shirts, that style, sleeveless, tank, ribbed, white, and they had crop version and a full-length version. Gautier used a very distinctly bright shade-up orange on both Lilloo and Dallas's costumes. I actually got an orange rubber bag right after the film was released probably about two years later that I think I bought at Target, and it was really reminiscent of the kind of orange braces that Lilo wears that kind of rubber, that kind of orange.

We don't see orange in everyday fashion. And for that reason, it kind of stood out to me and I started kind of paying attention. I have one more example from the fifth element, Lilu's bandage costume. The character is an ancient being who was brought back to life with futuristic technology. At first, her newly generated body is naked. Thermal bandages. And then the machine wraps her in criss-crossing white bandages. Now, they could have done that in a lot of different ways.

They could have covered her in a lot of different ways. But he didn't want the bride from the bride of Frankenstein, where it's a big billowy white cover for her. They wanted her to be sexy. They wanted to reveal some skin. At the same time, they wanted this to look futuristic. And now there's something called a bandage. And that is these kind of spandex or lycra strips.

And they were quite popular right after the film came out for a few years. They went away and they came back for a little bit. And now they're not popular again. Although the 90s are back. So who knows? Next, we are going to the opposite end of the bright and campy spectrum. We'll be dressing for a dystopian future or a more dystopian future than the the one we're living in.

This family is on the brink of civil war. On September 18th, Mobland. The hit original series is back on Paramount Plus. We are the Harrogans. Don't know than it? And Google us. From the underworld of Guy Ritchie. Do you want to step up the ladder?

I won't come up dead. Starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. Do I have to do everything myself? You want to want! I'll give you a lot. New season hit September 18th on Paramount Plus. It's your money calling. It wants a promotion.

Elevate your savings with the Scotia high interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit scotiabank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. One thing that science fiction and fashion have in common is that they can take elements from different eras and remix them. and if it's done well, a fashion show or work of science fiction should not feel like a pastiche.

It can feel ahead of its time or even timeless. I can see the aesthetics of Barabrella echoed in the costumes of the Fifth Element. Both movies were made at a time when the zeitgeist was optimistic about the future. Then you have the fashion designer Alexander McQueen. He grew up in the 1970s and 80s in a working. and class family on the east end of London. As a child, he was abused and witnessed abuse. And he always felt very drawn towards dark and dystopian films.

First and foremost, Alexander McQueen was hugely inspired by cinema. He actually named many of his collections after films that he was inspired by. Some of the collections were inspired by horror movies, like the birds, the shining, Psycho and Scanners. And in 1998, he debuted a collection for Givanshee that was inspired by Blade Runner. That collection is totally Blade Runner. I feel like every model looks like a version of Sean Young in that film. In those really sharply tailored suits, those 1940s bumper bangs,

it's clear that he is referencing Blade Runner, but it's also clear that Blade Runner is referencing Joan Crawford from the 19th. The movie Alien was also an influence on him. In his final collection before he died, the Queen debuted high-heeled shoes that were inspired by the xenomorph creature. And there were 11 different versions of this shoe, and any museum would be very, very happy to have it in their collection. Can you describe because, of course, people know the xenomorph from the alien movies,

and they know what a shoe looks like. So how, could you describe what it looks like, a xenomorph shoe? Well, the shoe itself was actually made from 3D printed resin. It looks almost as if it's been sculpted with kind of skeletal qualities. It does very much look like the alien from the film. But I think what's so cool about them is they're referencing, kind of this very futuristic science fiction aesthetic, and it's executed through a very futuristic manner of production.

So it feels like a cool marriage between those two things. Teresa thinks that's similar to Paco Raban and his space age designs. But he also had a real eye for nature and would pull that in, and he would create snake textiles in his materials that then he would make a garment with. For example, in the second Hunger Games movie, Catching Fire, the costume designer Trish Somerville worked with the House of McQueen. And at one point in the film, Elizabeth Banks's character Effie wears an outfit called the Monarch dress.

The dress looks like it's made out of hundreds of butterflies, but they're not real butterflies. Welcome. Welcome. As we celebrate the 75th anniversary, and third quarter quell of the hunger gains. The monarch dress was not designed by McQueen himself. It was designed by Sarah Burton,

who became the creative director of his design house after he died. And the work they do is aligned with his vision and sensibilities. And so it has a silhouette that is very torso hugging with the corset, and then it's a fuller skirt that's really shaped. You cannot see Elizabeth Banks' body under this. She could be any size. She could be any shape. The dress really stands all by itself.

It's so structured. And it was covered in soft materials that created the look of a monarch butterfly. One of the big questions that science fiction explores is what makes us human? The answer is often our bodies. But what a science fiction story has to say about our bodies depends on the storyteller. Fashion is obviously very concerned with the body as well. And Raiza thinks that these designers were a perfect fit for science fiction because their styles were already futuristic.

In thinking about what makes us perceive any design as futuristic, I think it comes down to garments that make the human body into something that is inhuman. And I think these three designers do it in different ways. So Paco Raban used these unconventional materials for his unwearable dresses, covered the body in metal plates, almost turning the body into a sort of machine. It's not a human-shaped garment. The human is simply the hanger for the garment.

I'd say Gote's designs are much more body conscious. They're much more revealing. They do emphasize certain parts of the body. However, with all of the kind of boning and corset, he's rearranging the human body to create something that is idealized. And then on the other hand, you have a designer like Alexander McQueen who did these wildly fantastical designs. His work transformed women almost into these mythical creatures with his designs that featured things like antlers and feathers and shells. Things gleaned from the natural world, but when taken together, appear very creature-like. She thinks there's another reason why a lot of fashion designers are drawn towards science fiction.

Many of the sci-fi films, at least that I talked about in my course, many of them fantasize about what would be possible for fashion. I'm thinking of forbidden planet when she goes to the robot and she says, you know, I want this dress made of star sapphires and I need it tomorrow. And the robot says, you know, I'll just make that up for you. I will run the dress up for you in time for breakfast. Sleep well, miss. Thank you, Robbie. Or like in Fifth Element with the nail polish changing. Zog's office.

Or something like Hunger Games, where you have a dress that's transformed by fire. Science fiction is a conduit to really advance design. There is a slideshow of the costumes that we talked about on the imaginary world's Instagram and Facebook pages. And if you're curious to learn more about the movie that you mentioned, Forbidden Planet, I did an episode about it in 2025. That's it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Raisa Britannia and Theressa Wingy.

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