Women Are from Venus (or Space Fashion According to Zsa Zsa Gabor) |

At the moment Mars is definitely glam: NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover landed yesterday on the Red Planet, while, as stated in a previous post, the Autumn/Winter 2012-13 season will feature a sort of “Flight To Mars”-inspired palette.

Having explored Mars previously, let's move onto Venus for today by briefly looking at the styles donned by the space explorers and the “aliens” in Edward Bernds' Queen of Outer Space (1958) featuring Zsa Zsa Gabor.

As you may remember, this American sci-fi film features a space crew crash landing on Venus.

Soon after arriving, the astronauts discover that the planet is under the control of an evil yet irresistibly glamorous masked queen named Yllana (Laurie Mitchell).

Helped by the main royal scientist, Talleah (Zsa Zsa Gabor), and her friends (Lisa Davis, Barbara Darrow, and Marilyn Buferd), the astronauts free Venus from the Queen who banished the male species from the planet as a revenge for her disfiguring radiation burns caused by men during their endless wars.

As you may guess from its plot (taken from Queen of the Universe, a 1952 satirical story by Ben Hecht), the movie is a rather naive romantic comedy (the main aim of Talleah and Co. is helping the astronauts to free Venus to bring back love on the planet…) that also satirises the idea of a planet entirely run by women.

The idea of evil women “lost in space” wasn't actually that new, it was indeed a theme tackled also in other films from the '50s, including Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Cat-Women of the Moon (both 1953), Fire Maidens of Outer Space (1956) and Missiles to the Moon (1958 – in a way also Mesa of Lost Women, 1953, referenced the theme of super women as rulers…).

Some of these films had a comical or misogynistic edge about them, and all of them were shot with one essential purpose, showing the physical attributes of the exotic inhabitants of some faraway planet.

Queen of Outer Space is undoubtedly a minor movie (it was supposed to be a vehicle to fame for Zsa Zsa Gabor who turned shooting this film into pure hell for many of the other featured actresses, all as beautiful as her and most of them winners of beauty contests…), but it remains a Technicolour gem for many loyal fans of the genre. As a bonus, the movie also features some irresistibly glamorous moments.

Some say that the entire film budget went towards Gabor's wardrobe and that is probably true. The budget for this film was extremely low (check out the Beta Disintegrator made in, erm, cardboard? View this photo) and in many cases sets and costumes from other films were reused.

Check out the film on movie manuals and you will easily discover that Queen of Outer Space recycled some props (the ray guns for example), the crewmen's uniforms and Motiya's tiny wardrobe (one dress – see last image in this post) from Forbidden Planet (1956); models, sets, and special effects were taken from Bernds's World Without End (1956) and assorted stock footage from William Beaudine's Paris Playboys (1954) that was co-written by Bernds and Elwood Ullman.

Yet while most pin-up looking Venusian ladies wear mini-skirted dresses dismissed from other films, Talleah's wardrobe is an orgy of evening gowns with thigh high slits or golden dresses always matched with veils delicately wrapping her shoulders.

The queen is as glamorous as Talleah, in fact she seems to favour sequinned designs that go well with her glittery mask.

Most outfits donned by the female characters in the film are matched with metallic kid leather sandals or ankle boots.

While the set decorator for this film was Joseph Kisk, Irene Caine worked as wardrobe supervisor and Thomas Pierce designed Gabor's wardrobe.

Though there are echoes in some of the designs of costumes from early Flash Gordon's films and the queen wears towards the end a dark sequinned dress with the typical space age pagoda-shaped shoulders borrowed from Art Deco matched with tight silvery trousers, most of the dresses and gowns donned by Zsa Zsa Gabor were designed according to the late '50s trends, showing that space age utopia in fashion was still to come and excess and glamour were still the norm.

Despite Gabor was the main star in this film, it was a secondary character, Lisa Davis' Motiya, who then went on to inspire a famous star of our times: Motiya, who wore in the film Anne Francis' Altaira dress from Forbidden Planet, donned a long ponytail throughout the film, and her hairstyle was then adopted by Madonna during her Blond Ambition tour, proving this '50s film with a rather thin plot can still be very inspiring (check out Motiya's Forbidden Planet dress/hairstyle in the following picture – she's the second from the right in the first frame).

What would a queen from outer space wear nowadays? The choice is wide, but I guess she may go for an iridescent laser cut leather gown à la Lie Sang Bong (Spring/Summer 2012 collection – complete with the designer's see-through rigid plastic mask if you're playing the role of masked queen…) while her guards may wear an iridescent leather armour matched with a colourful pleated skirt (obviously from the same designer and collection). Anybody up for a cool remake?