StarTalk Radio - Science is Fierce

Episode Date: March 28, 2013

Do sci-fi classics like Star Trek provide a glimpse into future trends and styles? Neil chats with stylist James Aguiar about the science fiction and facts of fashion. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Welcome to StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and I'm also the director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. the director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. I'm here in New York City joined by my fab co-host, comedian Lynn Coplitz. Lynn, welcome back. Hello.

I love our new intro. Isn't that great? It is so cool. All parts of my body are still shaking from it. This week's show topic is on the science of fashion, as well as the appearance of fashion in science fiction. And I have no expertise at all on this, except I have strong opinions about all the outfits I've seen in movies. But in a few minutes, we're going to get to an interview I conducted in my office with

fashion stylist James Aguilar. We have a professional. We have a professional. That's right. But first, we have to sort of do an update on the week's news, cosmic news. Well, I know. We have news that has to do with our show last week. Yeah, last week we talked about new life that was discovered in a lake in California.

It's not new life. It's old life. But that lake has very high- We are so cutting edge now. That lake has some of the highest levels of arsenic of any body of water in the world. So if you find life thriving in it, you want to understand why isn't the arsenic killing them because it would kill us like post haste. And one of the reasons it would kill us is because our body is not good enough to distinguish phosphorus from arsenic. Do you remember your chemistry in high school?

Do you remember? Oh, yeah. Of course I do. I'm just checking. I didn't even know if Connecticut was a state or not. I hardly remember chemistry. No, I do know that. So in it, arsenic sits right below phosphorus on the periodic table of elements, which means they bond the same way with the same elements. And so when you ingest arsenic, your body doesn't know the difference, and you could

end up dying from it because your body doesn't protect you from that distinction. There are microbes, however, that do know the difference and can swap it out and still thrive on it. And so we reported on this discovery. That's what we found out last week. Last week, there was a NASA announcement that there are microbes in Mono Lake in California that thrive on arsenic in places where the phosphorus would go. Since then, there's been some pushback in the scientific community, which they're always –

You know, everybody's got to rain on somebody else's parade, even if it's acid rain. They've got to do some sort of mean little rain on the parade, stepping on their rainbow. You've just got to make sure your nose is clean when you're doing science. And so they questioned whether – apparently they were coaxing the bacteria not to replace their phosphorus, one of the basic ingredients of life as we know it. The claim was that they were like swapping arsenic with the phosphorus. Turns out that might not be so, that what they were actually doing was just discovering that the life is doing just fine in high arsenic environments. It's not killing them. They're not actually swapping it out.

So the full answer remains to be determined. They weren't, like, regenerating or something? Is that what you were saying? No, no. It's just that they lost me at swapping. I'm dead. I don't even know what that meant anymore. I was like, all of a sudden, I'm back in high school.

I'm just saying that, as is common in any frontier of science, you come out with an amazing discovery. There will be other colleagues of yours that are going to double check it. Someone wants to step on your rainbow. Skepticism runs rampant throughout the scientific community because that's the only way we can be sure that people did the right thing. But are there ever final answers in science now? Like it seems like people can always question everything. No, it's something. When all the data agree and everything's working, you're done.

You're done. You go on to the next problem. So yes, there can be final answers, like Earth does go around the sun, in case you were wondering. I know that. I'm just saying. But you can keep asking new questions and you can... Yes, yes. And so, by the way, the frontier of science is not only always in flux, but so too, of

course, is fashion. In fact, fashion – Good segue. Was that good? I practiced that. Neil's way of saying move on. So, yes, fashion changes, much to the chagrin of many people who either can't afford to keep buying new clothes or – but the fashion industry loves it. And I don't fully understand it, but we have a good interview with James Aguiar.

He's Aguiar. I think I pronounced it right. He's a fashion stylist to the stars. He appears on the TV show Full Frontal Fashion. I love that show. Full Frontal Fashion. That's the guy. I know.

He's good. And so we've got several clips with him. And first I talked to him just to get an understanding of sort of where in the universe his mind operates in, just to find out, is there any connection between what he does and what we do? Let's go check him out. I got to be honest with you. I can't think of a more remote topic from astrophysics than fashion. When I got your call, I thought the same thing. I thought, what is he thinking, science and fashion? Well, because I've seen science fiction movies, and somebody had to design

those outfits on other planets. And somebody, one of your cultural brethren, is thinking this through, wondering what the future of fashion would bring. Right. And I always say the future of fashion, question mark, meaning does it really exist? So, for instance. What do you mean, does it exist? Well, when you look at a futuristic movie or a science fiction film that some designer or costume designer spent beaucoup time designing, it always inevitably ends up looking like the time we're living in. So, can you really design the future? So for instance... Well, that's interesting because I remember old Star Treks.

Back then, it looked cool because I think it was sort of on the edge of the contemporary design. But you look back on it, they're dressed like the 60s all the way. That is the 60s. It is so... Lieutenant Uhura has got the boots, the tight whatever, the hot pants. It's the 60s.

It's the 60s. And it's funny because Star Trek is really, I think, one of the best examples because it really was designing the future, not just in fashion or costume, but in the society and how we expected to live in the future. Right. But if you really look at it, Uhura, Lieutenant Uhura, she was a receptionist. She sat there answering the phones. You know what I mean? Answering the intergalactic phone. Exactly.

So, I mean, the future doesn't really exist. And if you look at Star Trek, you see the short skirts, mini skirts, which were big in the day. Boots, which were go-go boots. They were go-go boots. They were disco cage go-go boots. Absolutely. The wigs, the bouffant hairdos, the blue eyeshadow with the Egyptian eyeliner,

all of that is very 60s, but it was also, like you said, on the edge of fashion. So it still got to look cool in its day. It got to look cool, and that's why we look back at it now like, God, that's fierce. You know, a fashion person would say,

that's fierce. I love him. Yeah'd be great and what i really like is that he completely nerded out with you the minute he said did you notice that the minute he said this fashion really exists in the future you could hear you have like a little science orgasm you're like does it what does that mean that's so exciting existential on me there. You just got so excited. Oh, my gosh. I love that. So I have favorite sci-fi outfits that have been worn in movies. Do you remember the movie Barbarella?

Do you remember that? Oh, you and every other guy. And if you say Princess Leia and Barbarella, I'm going to hit you in the head. I saw Barbarella at like a time in my life where I shouldn't have seen Barbarella. It was like a kind of a physiologically sensitive time. You weren't sleeping through the night? Is that what you're trying to tell us? And then fast forward, I couldn't stop paying attention to what Carrie Ann Moss was wearing in The Matrix.

That was just awesome. Oh, my. You and every other guy. Well, I'm sorry. I'm a guy. What do you want from me? No, wait. How about you?

Going back to what James said, well, you want to know what I like being a woman, what and every other guy. Well, I'm sorry. I'm a guy. What do you want from me? No, wait. How about you? Going back to what James said. Well, you want to know what I like being a woman, what pops in my head. Of course, as a girl, I love Princess Leia and I loved all the Star Trek. But again, he was right. James is right. The Star Trek stuff, because it was 60s. That was just cute. It looked like Barbie dolls.

But I really love Sigourney Weaver's outfit in Aliens. She was just a butt kicking outfit. Is that what that was? And it was like, I liked it because it was very androgynous. It always looked like she could move in it. It was like the first one was kind of a jumpsuit-y looking thing. I liked that a lot. Yeah, so what you're saying is you want to be a superhero like she was.

Is that right? I want a utility belt, but who doesn't? Well, we went back to James Aguilar, who's our guest this week. He called a whore a receptionist. I know. That was awesome. We went to find out what he just thinks about sci-fi clothes and whether they have utility. Science clothes?

Really? Sorry. Because I've seen some science clothes over at Hayden Planetarium. They're pretty much pocket protectors and ugly shirts. Let's see what he has to say about the clothes of the future. When they're not wearing clothing of our time, they tend to wear these sort of silver costumes, and they all seem to have these broad shoulders. That seems to be a recurring theme.

What's up with that? I'm not blaming you for it. What's up with that? I'm not blaming you for it. What's up with that? Look, if the asteroid came, you'd blame me for that, right? That's true. Even though I had nothing to do with it. Maybe you did. I mean, that's the thing with you scientists.

You never know. What we're cooking up in the lab. Exactly. I think the thing with the silver and broad shoulders, it's designers working with technical fabrics of the day. So whatever seems futuristic, meaning like I would never wear this on a day-to-day basis, but in the future it might ward off laser beams or aliens throwing rocks at us or, you know, moon, you know, climate change or climate control on different planets. So they have a utility of the moment. Exactly.

That serves that need. I love him aliens throwing rocks at us. Those are some not scary aliens throwing space rocks. He went from laser beams to rocks there. I think he... They might ward off laser beams or aliens throwing rocks. Aliens don't have laser beams. I like that, though.

You know, I have a pet peeve, and I have a friend who has a pet peeve about people wearing fashions that came from certain things and then not utilizing them for those purposes, like cargo pants. I have cargo pants. But do you use the pocket? Totally. I do, too. It's what I use because I don't carry a pocketbook.

That's why. They're pretty awesome. Wait, you're telling me you have a pocketbook and you fill up all the pockets in your cargo pants. So you need two pocketbooks. No, I wear the cargo pants when I walk the dog and I put all my poop bags on it. Gotcha. See, what I did, I'm old enough to remember this. I wore, in New York City city i wore one of those farmer

pants the the overalls i wore overalls yeah with the hammer slot did you wear a shirt on them i hope were you wearing them like studio 54 with one undone on one side no no no it was yeah it was just i guess it was fashion influencing what i thought you ever wear parachute pants because that's kind of a science thing. I will not admit to that. Because parachute, I mean, those came, the reason those were being used, am I correct? We were talking about it is because the parachute didn't rip easily. I own three pairs of parachute pants.

I must confess. They're pretty awesome. I had a gray, I had a black, and I had another one that was kind of an off red. I had pink., and I had another one that was kind of an off-red. I had pink. Okay. So they were good. Maybe they became clothing because you could breakdance in them without tearing up your clothes spinning on the sidewalk. Right, but I didn't use them for breakdancing.

That's my whole thing about fashion is, of course, that's why they came about, but then I was just wearing them to school. To school. I went to performing arts school. Okay, all right. Dorky. I just wore them to clubs, but I couldn't wear them to my astroph school? I went to performing arts school. Okay, all right. Dorky. I just wore them to clubs, but I couldn't wear them to my astrophysics classes. That wouldn't have worked. I just love that.

Your whole wardrobe. You've got overalls and parachute masks. But guess who we have back on StarTalk? We have our favorite, Bill Nye. Oh, that's right. Yes, Bill Nye. I don't know how much he's into fashion, but he's into spacesuits. Let's see what he tells us about that.

Science fashion. Hey, Bill Nye here. Whenever Star talk listeners find themselves in space they want to look good and feel good that's why you wear your spacesuit it's high fashion and it keeps you from dying in space not only is there no air there's no anything which includes nothing to provide pressure against your body the pressure your body is accustomed to. So, spacesuit makers set you up with your own atmosphere. Your suit is its own spaceship. But the suits sewn so far are bulky, massive, and clumsy. A spacesuit is a whole bunch of suits worn one inside the other. See, I wore a spacesuit for a while on TV. There's an absorption layer, a zigzag tube ventilation garment, a fan, and a nose scratcher. My suit had all manner of joints and hoses, and it took quite a while to don.

But soon we'll have bio suits with form-fitting fibers that hold you together without the bulk. You'll be the hit of every party from here to the moon. And, of course, as we tell every traveler, don't forget your hat. I mean, your helmet. I got to fly. Bill Nye the Science Guy. Okay. I got to fly. Bill Nye the Science Guy. Okay. I love him.

Bill, he's a friend of StarTalk Radio, and he always comes through for us. I didn't know he put on a spacesuit one time. He wore it on the TV show all the time. And I didn't know that it had a nose scratcher in it. That's creepy, actually. I think he was hilarious when he just said, you have to wear spacesuits or you'll die. That's not scary at all, Bill Nye. Or you'll die. That's not scary at all, Bill Nye. Or you'll die.

Hi, kids. You've been listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist. We've got to take a quick break, but more StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Joining today is my co-host, Lynn Coplitz. Lynn, we've been talking about space fashion. And the way technology has influenced fashion, and the way fashion has influenced sci-fi visions of the future.

It absolutely has. I mean, Bill Nye said something that stuck out to me in the last little Bill Nye Minute, which was how space and space fashion, you know, the spacesuits are going to be holding us together with thinner, lighter weight material. And, Neil, that's already happening in fashion with Spanx. Spanx. Do you know what those are? No. That's Hollywood's big secret that is creating that keeps up the illusion of what we call women. And it's the most beautiful thing.

I call it behind the scenes of the electric light parade. If you look under a lot of women's clothing, we're wearing now these space-age girdles. This is body sculpting, you're saying. Yes, but they're basically space-age girdles. Girdles used to be like these hideous things like sausage casing. And now they're made of thinner materials. But they're still sausage casing. They're just higher-tech versions of it.

But just a nicer, more comfortable, aerodynamic version. It's interesting that materials that technology drove to enable people to do a lot of outdoor things, to stay warm in the cold. Like waterproofing things. Waterproofing. That's all. All of that. All of that has become just mainstream clothing. So the intersection of fashion and technology, I think that distinction is not even there

anymore. Can you even imagine not having cortex? I can't. Yeah, yeah. It's something that's fundamental part of everyday life. And among cool items that people might wear, I think of superheroes, what they might be wearing. Look at what Spider-Man wears or Superman.

Superman used to get wrinkles in his pantyhose, and now he doesn't in the old TV series. I think they were tights then. Tights. I don't think a superhero wore pantyhose. I think that's what he would tell you. Let's go back to my interview with James Aguiar. He's the fashion stylist. And see what he says about superhero costumes.

You'd wear tights. The Met a few years ago did an exhibit on superheroes. I remember that. I attended that. That's correct. Which I thought was a very thin idea for a show. But when you look at the technology that those costumes had, that's kind of what we're talking about.

Where does technology come into this? It's beyond, it's more than just the cotton and your sewing machine, apparently. What kind of envelopes can you stretch here? Well, I always look to what sports figures do, and specifically what they do for the Olympics. That's the time when a lot of innovative, technical fabrics are introduced for athletes. Like the swimmers had the shark skin. Exactly. I don't even know what that was.

I know, but I kind of wanted to try it. But that's how it trickles down then to film. And, for instance, the costume designers for Spider-Man say, you know what, that looked really great, speed skaters. So let's, let's appropriate that for the costume. So, you know, just so, so people understand for so much of sports, you're moving through the air. This is not the Olympics on the moon. You're moving through air or you're moving through water. So what you want to do is reduce what we call the viscous drag on your body. And you want water to be what we call flow over you in a laminar way. Laminar means it doesn't kick up little turbulent curly cues.

You ever see these wind tunnel tests where they put a car in a wind tunnel? Sure. And it goes smoothly over the front and in the back it can curl up? Yeah. If it curls up, it creates like a vacuum behind you, and it slows you down. So you want to minimize that completely. So a lot of this, so I don't know if you knew this, but Speedo approached NASA to get them to develop a superior swimsuit, because you want to know how to design a surface that can move through a fluid. It could be air or water. Fluid is something that takes the shape of its container. That makes sense. But then also, what about the sneakers?

Like for pro basketball, I mean, I know those guys spend a lot of money to have sneakers that they can jump higher in and move better in, right? Yeah, I think in the end it helps when you're a good basketball player. But am I wrong? I don't know how much space technology went into basketball shoes, but I know a whole lot of technology has gone into basketball shoes. And sneakers. And I used to believe, I mean, I remember seeing ads for PF flyers,

and they had the action wedge on the inside, but we could never afford them. And I was wearing Keds, and it was like. Your mother's like, just draw a little wedge on the side, you're fine. But I could still run faster than all the rest of them, so I knew that was a lot of belonging. You had welfare flyers. That's how that was. So, anyhow, so the frontier of research, we have really smart people solving interesting problems, has affected fashion in ways, especially the Olympics, where Michael Phelps—

We need to see our viscose drag. Viscous. Whatever. Michael Phelps wore just one of those outfits for the Olympics. Did he have clothes on? I didn't notice. Okay, distracted. I like to picture him nude. There's some

claim recently that there's clothing that is self-heating, and I'm skeptical about that, and that was brought up by James Aguilar. Let's see what he says about it, and I think I got on his case about that. I'm pre-menopause. I do not need that. Alright, let's check him out. There's a store called Uniqlo that has designed heat sensitive. Oh, no, wait, excuse me. I saw their ad in the subway. You're skeptical, right?

Self-heating clothing. Now, I do physics and someone says the clothing is self-heating. I ask, what is the energy source? Is there a battery? Is there a coffee warmer? Like, what is it? And then I read the fine print, and all it does is trap your own body heat. That's what any clothing does. That's why we put on our clothes in the morning. So maybe it does it better than other clothes. Fine. Say that. Don't say that you somehow revolutionized clothes because it keeps your body heat in. Excuse me? Are you done?

No, no, no. Let me keep going. And so I was pissed off. There in the subway, I had nobody to complain to, nobody to punch, because it's abuse of the laws of physics. And I'm the physics police. All right, physics police. Now I'm done. First of all, it's not. What it does is it redefines technology and how we decide to layer our clothes for warmth.

So instead of, well, you could put cotton on, but we know cotton breeze. We know linen breeze. Silk is actually a really good fabric for warming the body. Insulator, that's right. It's a great insulator. And this is what this is. This is technological fabrics that say, you know what, now I'm not going to wear

that quilted thermal t-shirt. I'm going to get this because it's super thin. It's going to not make my appearance bulky or I'm going to be able to wear this. And then I can go out in the cold dressed in many more ways than I could have before. Exactly. I believe it if they said

it just simply keeps you more warm than other clothes in a thinner way. Because when we all grew up, they said, oh, you need 14 layers and thick coats and that's how you stay warm. I'm glad that's all been transformed. We all look like the Michelin Man running up and down the block. Yes, and when I was growing up, my mother would put Wonder Bread bags on my feet inside my boots

to keep my socks warm. Wow. So we've come a long way. No, no, no. Actually, no. The Wonder Bread bags was so that your feet can slide in easily through the rubber galoshes. That's why. Because I had Wonder Bread bags, too, and that's why.

Unless your parents gave you a different excuse for why they did it. It would not, I swear to you, it's not to keep your feet warm. It wasn't to keep it warm. It was to keep them dry. Dry. Okay. That, too. So when you've got the rain or the snow, it was an insulator. Did this

scar you so badly? You had this wonder bread moment on your feet and you swore this would never happen again, so you became a fashion designer? No, what it did made me realize how often and how much technology and materials affect our everyday lives. And this is kind of what your point of the show is, I think, is how do all of these elements affect science? And if you're not looking around, if you're not, as a designer especially, if you're not looking at materials and technology and blending the two, you're really not pushing anything forward. So whether or not you're explicitly thinking science,

you're freely recognizing that added science literacy in your profession can definitely aid your designs and where you head and what you're doing. It's everything that makes a person well-rounded and interesting and interested. I love him. I love that he just dissed you. He's like, no, you were trying to be funny about the Wonder Bags, and he's like, no. What it made me think was what your show's about, I believe. You know what I thought was really interesting about that, Neil? Living in New York City, you know how I live in a pre-war building, so it gets very hot in my apartment. Which war are you talking about?

You know what I mean. Be specific. My point is that it gets very hot. Go out to the world. I don't know. Just stop it. I just want to get to this point. We're going to run out of time and I want to say this.

So I open the windows because that's how you have to live in New York. You've got the heat from the building. It's the old buildings. And then you open the windows so it sometimes gets freezing in the middle of the night. So I've really experimented with how to layer my blankets. And the strangest thing, and that's when he just said that, I thought, oh my gosh, I have experienced this. Is that I always thought by putting the warm, like the fleece against my body, it would be warmer. But now I've found that when I put the sheet first and the fleece between the down and the sheet, that's the warmest combination.

So you could write up this scientific experiment. It was kind of interesting. Science in Lynn's bed. This is good. Good to hear, Lynn. It is a bit of a Petri dish. There's a bit of thermodynamics here. How much thermodynamics do you remember, Lynn?

Yeah, hold on. Let me pull out my thermodynamic book. No, it's good because you can get energy or take energy. You're new to me today. No, I'm not. Depending on what kind of chemical. There's chemical energy that can be taken away from something or given to. So cold packs at sporting events.

I'm talking about trapping the heat in your body. In your body. So that's one way to stay warm. Another way is to make yourself warm from sources of heat. And it's just a matter of what kind of chemical combinations. Like those little hot packs. There's hot packs. You can rub them and they release the chemical reactions.

Turn the pack hot. That's an exothermic reaction. And then there's others you can do the same kind of crumbling of the crystals, and it makes it cold. And you have a cold. That's an endothermic reaction. And it's amazing how that has grown, because when I was a kid, my grandparents would say, you've got to put a hot, when they were kids, they had a hot potato they put in their pocket

to keep warm, and then they would eat it for lunch. Was this Ireland? No, it was the Depression. Oh, the Depression, yes, of course. To stay warm, you had to have a potato in your pocket, and then you'd eat it for your lunch. Potatoes stay hot for a long time. Now kids should be lucky. They get the endothermic thingamagagi.

They just get chemistry to do it instead of food. That's right. Or you hope they weren't. That's right. Is that dangerous they weren't. That's right. Is that dangerous, though? Is that a pollutant, those things? I don't know. Some chemicals are, but most are much less polluting than people believe they are,

simply because they're called chemicals, and people think all chemicals are bad. I'm just thinking maybe we should go back to the hot potato. Okay. We'll work on it. You're listening to StarTalk. We've got to take a break, but more on the science and technology of fashion when we come back. But you're listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. And I'm here with my co-host, Lynn Coplitz.

We've been interviewing this hour James Aguiar, who's a fashion designer to the stars. Actually, he's a fashion stylist. And he makes you look good when you need to look good. And so he's been giving us insight into what goes on in the head of a fashion designer. And there are other things that go on in the relationship between technology and fashion. For example, people today,

you don't even think about it anymore, but we have wrinkle-free fabrics and stain-resistant fabrics and fire-resistant fabrics and waterproof fabrics, and we resistant fabrics and waterproof fabrics. And we just buy them and just accept that that's what they are. And I don't know that there's enough appreciation going on to the fusion of science and technology of science and fashion.

If you were around back when people were blowing up, remember those shirts that were from India and they were they were literally getting lit on fire. I didn't remember that. If you went near an open flame, you were going up in flames. It was like back in the 80s and it was a nightmare. And then you appreciate it when you remember back to that stuff. Yeah, and so there's several ways to do it. I think in the old days you would dip the clothing in these sort of surfacants that would give it these properties. Nowadays, I've been reading that they can actually grow,

they can treat the wool fibers themselves, the woven fibers themselves, and then whatever you make out of it would then have those properties. Although, one... And there's all that wrinkle-free, like the spray stuff now where you can do your own spray dry cleaning, your spray wrinkle-free. Yeah, but isn't that just steam?

Isn't that just steam? That's not... Because formaldehyde will make clothes wrinkle-free forever. I don't know if you knew that. Formaldehyde. I didn't know that. That's the stuff that keeps brains fresh in a jar. I know what formaldehyde is. Okay.

No. Just in case. I don't know if you have formaldehyde. I keep all my ex-boyfriend's toes in it. Okay. And there's another one. I just read this story. The London College of Design professor, Helen Story, created a magically

disappearing dress made from polymers. And it's water-soluble polymers. And there's a video. There's a water soluble. So she made like a soap dress. A soap dress, essentially. So the emperor did have clothes on. They were just made

out of soap. Well, here's what happened. So if you go into the water, then the clothes just dissolve off of you. And there's a video of a supermodel wearing this new dissolvable clothing, dipping into a pool of water. And the dress – we have a video of this on StarTalk Radio's Facebook page. Did she know it would dissolve? Oh, was she not told this in advance? I don't know. Just give a bunch of women these soap dresses and then push them into puddles.

So you can find on our Facebook page, we have the link directly to this Disappearing Dress Act. Oh, I have to see that. My question is why? Why? Why? Is it you're too lazy to take your clothes off before you go in the shower? Is that what? My guess is because they can.

I mean, that would be the why. Fashion designers gone bad, I think, is what that is. I'm sure Lady Gaga has one of those dresses, don't you think? Wouldn't that be great? You could squirt her with water guns on the red carpet. Oh, that would be great. The selective anatomical parts. You can find us on Facebook.

We're at Facebook.com slash StarTalkRadio. Otherwise, just do their marvelous, execute their marvelous surf functions, and you'll land right where you need to be. Didn't the London Museum of Design, didn't they also make, they made a dress made out of, like, LED lights? It was total Lady Gaga stuff. Yeah, I think it's, you know, why not if you're going to go there just to see, just to test the waters. But I'm more intrigued by this next frontier of what they're doing with fashion. Me too. And they're

now working on materials that have all sorts of sort of sensory applications, for example. This is so interesting. So they're making infant bed linens that smell like mother's milk. So they're made out of aromatic fabric.

Yes, yes. And you choose the aroma that you want. So wait, tell me about the infant bed linens. Well, so you wrap them in this and they think they're smothered in mother's milk. And there's some pleasure to that. Okay, I know grown men who would want to sleep on this.

But it can calm down anxious children. I mean, previously, what we did with my kids is, you know, simulate a heartbeat. But now, this seems like much more sort of a passive, yet nonetheless effective plan. Now, tell people listening the other things that these aromatic fabrics smell like. Okay, so another one. Because it's really cold. Okay, so suppose you have a cold. You can use sort of eucalyptus-treated pillowcases.

And I've always sprayed my pillowcases with eucalyptus. Is that right? Or lavender, because both of those things are nice to sleep on. So your bed is a petri dish. I clean the sheets. Here's one. Pluto is a planet. Okay, go on.

So also in the fashion science lab, there are clothes that contain pheromones that enhance sexual arousal and attraction. Oh, great. That's what we need. Viagra sheets. Well, it wouldn't have to be sheets. In that case, it's just clothing. You just put it on your shoulder or the part of you that's closest. Oh, my gosh.

What? Don't complain to me. I'm just reporting the news. That's just a bad idea. I'm reporting the news. Men are horny enough. Can you imagine being on the subway knowing that those clothes are out there? You've got some homeless guy rubbing up on you.

I like your jacket. Smells good. There's that scene in Trading Places. I don't know if you remember it. Where Penelope sat down on the chair in the police station. And this really creepy homeless guy just leaned over and said, You smell good. Oh, so gross.

She sprays him on it. So this is fascinating, and what's obviously next is if you need medical doses of various things, you can have clothing that has medicine built into it, and it gives you the right dose at the right time. Oh, I don't trust that at all. Why? What if it gives you too many doses? I think she overdosed on her cardigan. And there's one more.

There's one where you can use clothing that actually does its own smelling to keep track of what, if there's something in the air. What does that mean? Well, so for example, suppose you can imagine clothing that was sensitive to carbon monoxide. And then the clothing sort of reacts when you walk into the presence of these chemicals. That's kind of interesting. I mean, why not? That's awesome. I love it. You could program your clothes to sniff out douchebags or guys that you don't like in crime scenes. They're going to, in the crime scene, that's right. If the criminal has a particular smell, the clothing can retain a record of that smell, and it's a much more chemically complex and uniquely findable fingerprint than fingerprints themselves.

But then you're going to have people bathing in deer pee to hide their smell. Let's go back to James Aguilar to see what he says about the fashion changing because everything changes. Let's see what he tells us about that. Fashion is always about changing. It is always about deciding what people want in the future. Fashion designers design two and three seasons ahead. They're always thinking this way. They're always thinking this way. It's the masses and all of us who sort of catch up with it two years later, three years later, four years later. I gotta ask, why does fashion exist at all? I don't mean to be so blunt.

I'm just, why do you make me buy something different three months from now? I'll tell you. I'm perfectly happy. The clothes fit. They work. I'm fine. Now you gotta come and say,

I gotta buy something different. I clothes fit. They work. I'm fine. Now you got to come and say, I got to buy something different. I don't. But your daughter might or your wife or your girlfriend, she may say, you know what? I'm tired of you wearing those jeans. And look at President Obama when he was wearing those dad jeans. He got ridiculed not only in the fashion press, but the press. Fashion exists so we can change. So that you can ridicule. So that we can reassess. So you can have a worst dress list. And the best dress list. Okay.

And we can reassess how we feel about ourselves. That's James Ocular. You know, so fashion, it changes all the time. It does, but I don't think I agree with everything he's saying. My friend and I were saying this too. It doesn't always, it changes. It definitely evolves. But lots of times it's making a play on the old, like just retweaking.

Retweaking, so you've got to go out and buy something new. But it turns out, interestingly, and even Darwin noticed this in The Descent of Man. Oh, Darwin. We can go back to Darwin. Not Darwin. Darwin, yeah. He noticed that many animals in the animal kingdom, humans included, have some sense of what beauty is. Look at peacocks.

And birds in general. The plumage, particularly of the male versions of the birds, are, because they're the ones with all the fabulous featherage. All the pomp and circumstance. In the bird kingdom, yes. featherage. All the pomp and circumstance. In the bird kingdom, yes. The female peacock has got a little brown-tailed feathers dragon in the dirt

while he's out there, look what I got. But it's kind of, clearly they don't, not that we know of, have fashion designers of their own, but clearly they're into looking good. And I'm intrigued by that. And they attract each other with that. They attract each other, they attract usually a mate. That's the interesting thing, is they actually attract each other with the fashion.

They attract something that they can make more peacocks out of. Right. So. But I'm saying that definitely, you can definitely see that in the animal kingdom. Then you see that definitely on the red carpet because look at Jennifer Lopez in her little low cut. There was. There was.

Versace thing. That's to attract a mate. It's not only plumage but in song and in how they decorate their nests jennifer lopez and this is what and and you know the hot cribs on mtv you know this is we do all the same thing that the birds do maybe this is this is a this is a deep insight you know what's interesting about that i have a friend who's a uh stylist who told me one time that you can wear any color green, any shade of green matches each other because of nature. That we're so used to seeing all shades of green.

Oh, I didn't know that. And it's true. You can wear hunter green and light green and all shades of green actually match each other. And I think that's really neat. I'll keep that in mind next time I'm going to a scientific conference. And I have an interior design friend who actually told me that he uses fruit to help him with color combinations sometimes. Let me quote Darwin because he's right here with us. He says that on the subject of imagination and the love of imitation, okay, it could not have failed to have led to the most capricious changes in customs and fashions.

Well, you can use fruit. What's the woman's name who did that? It was a friend of mine back in Nashville. I don't even remember his name. You're from Nashville? You're not from Nashville. Yeah, I lived in Nashville. You lived in Nashville.

Not from there. You're listening to Star Talk. We'll be back after this quick break. We're back on StarTalk I'm with my co-host, Lynn Coplitz. Lynn, I have a surprise for you. This whole show's been about fashion. Yes. I have something from our last season.

I just had to put right in here and now. Here she goes. What is it? I don't like the outfits, so I wouldn't live in outer space. So it's all about the clothes? Yes. I'm sorry. I agree, but I like the idea of zero gravity, Jim,

because without zero gravity, gravity is what pulls everything down. So it does give us that more uplift. That's the only reason I would even consider going in space, is the idea of I don't have that drag down. So, Joan, you don't need any more uplift, apparently.

No, no, no. The point is, you would have things up, but you'd still have to wear those stupid spacesuits. They look like gay exterminators. have to wear those stupid spacesuits. Oh, good point. They look like gay exterminators. I don't like the spacesuits. Good point. So even if you're floating, no one knows because you're wearing a spacesuit. Yes, you're wearing a stupid spacesuit. They don't know. You can't get your toes down those big boots, the gravity boots. It is so not for me. So you want open-toed gravity boots?

boots. It is so not for me. So you want open-toed gravity boots? I would like if I was good. I will wait to go on the moon until they figure out a way you can look nice. I don't like the outfit. I love my girl, Joan. I don't like the outfit. That's your girl. Oh, the two of us.

You know, we're both not shallow women, but when you listen to us together, Joan says I like the outfits and I'm like, I'd only go in space because there's zero gravity. What an idiot I am. Yeah, that's my girl. I love her. Well, so we've got another last clip of James Aguirre, who he's our guy.

He's our fashion stylist. He's funny, too. And he works on all the people who are on the red carpet. Actually, he told me if I ever won an Academy Award one day that he would fix me up for that. This is so not going to happen. And if I ever win a Nobel Peace Prize, he's going to fix me up. Okay.

What a generous guy. He talks about NASA-inspired fashion. Let's see what he has to say. The other day I was going through my bag of stuff, and I found an old G.I. Joe costume when G.I. Joe had hair. Is he now bald? I didn't know this.

Well, I think he's plastic now. Oh, when he had actually fiber hair. Yeah hair hair um and it was a nassau space travel uniform as they have for barbie too there was gemini barbie exactly yeah and it made me think first of all it was a well-made costume but it was metallic silver and i think that that's what you always see in the future. And then I always think, did Helmut Lang in the 90s have this costume on his inspiration wall? Because he did a whole line of NASA-inspired fashion

and specifically silver and mylar and technological fabrics. So I always sort of, my application is always fashion. Yours, obviously, is the world of science. But I always see what's the starting point and how does it affect fashion. That's interesting. And the more creative the fashion designer,

the more elements they can draw from pop culture, from society. Because otherwise, dare I speak out of my zone, if your inspirations are not drawn from real things, they might fall on fallow ground in the interest of the buyer. Whereas if I have 12 buttons and you're hitting these buttons and I don't even know it, I'm going to say, boy, that's an awesome looking outfit. Meanwhile, I had a piece of that came to me from various famous events or various famous costumes that we all know and love. Well, I think the myth about fashion is it's all fluff and it's just like, oh, you look fabulous and blah, blah, blah. When you really sit down with a Karl Lagerfeld or John Galliano, their breadth of history and what they know is so far removed from fashion. It's tribes in some, you know, some indigenous tribes. It's history. It's art. It's science.

It's technology. It's really little to do with fashion. All coming together to inspire every next thought that comes out of their mind. To make you bi. Bi as in B-U-I. Exactly. That's okay. Yeah, not B-I.

James Ogden. What to make you bi. That's hilarious. Yeah, I'm not the guy. What to make you buy. That's hilarious. Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't know if I trust a grown man who has a G.I. Joe doll in his bag of things. No, I do trust him. Listen, what he was just saying about the Mylar, he's right. Because my friend who's here today, who's hanging out, she was telling me how Terry Moogler and Claude Montana, who were big designers in the 80s, how everything they had designed, like everything Donna Mills wore in Knox Landing, remember that?

Yeah. Back to the cul-de-sac? Yeah. Everything she wore looked like Judy Jetson. It all was like the big lapels and the big shoulder pads. And then remember those belts we wore back then that had the bead? They were all very like- I remember that.

You know, the weird, what do you call it, utility... Space was working. It's working its magic. Little waist, big... All we wanted to look like. That was it, you know. You know, we have tweets that come in. I have one.

We've been tweeted? Yes, we have. And so here's one. It's a tweet that... What is a tweet? It's... Get this name straight. J.F. Doolster tweeted to StarTalk Radio,

do the shape-up shoes by Skechers do anything for your body? Now, I don't know for sure. I was going to buy them, but I said these look weird, you know. Those are those little ones that look like they rock a little bit. They look like they're rocking chairs on the bottom of your sneakers. And it turns out, and I didn't do this study, but it turns out just a few months ago, the American Council on Exercise, I didn't even know such a council existed, and listed a team of-

There's a council on everything, by the way. They listed a team of exercise scientists to test the effectiveness of these toning shoes. And they found that none of them showed statistically significant increases in either the exercise response or muscle activation during any of the treadmill trials. Interesting. And they tested 12 physically active people. So the answer is no. There is no evidence to support the claims that these shoes help wearers exercise more intensely, burn more calories, or improve muscle strength or tone. End quote.

But you get to be cool and claim that you're sort of on the frontier. Oh, my God. I love your science answer. There are no blah, blah, blah, no, dee, da, no, da, da, blah, blah, blah. Okay, your answer, tweeter, is no. They don't help. If you want to spend 40 bucks, knock yourself out, but they don't help. I'm just saying.

Put the donut down. Next. We're coming to the close of the show yourself out, but they don't help. I'm just saying. Put the donut down. Next. We're coming to the close of the show. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. And in the close of the show, it's my turn to sort of give a... This means shut up, Lynn. I love you, Neil.

Thank you very much. This was fun today. Well, you're going to listen to my close? Yes. No, I got to pee. No, I'll listen, of course. No, I try to close each show with a cosmically inspired tweet, if I might, but informed by the show that we just did. So what I'm thinking this time, as I open the show in my conversation with James Aguiar, it was fashion and astrophysics.

Where do they intersect at all? Do they? Should they? And I realized me and my colleagues, we don't like to admit it, but yes, we wear clothes that have been designed and influenced by somebody out there. And maybe there are some fashion folks that said, oh, science. But at the end of the day, without physics, there'd be no fashion channel. There'd be no TV.

But without fashion, physicists might just be naked. You've been listening to StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.