Comparative Studies in Sci-Fi Fashion: Flash Gordon Vs Ashley Isham

Throughout the decades, the sci-fi film genre provided great inspirations for many fashion designers.

Fantastic worlds, undiscovered planets and mysterious aliens constantly offered a virtually unlimited source of inspiration for what regarded the cut of specific garments, the shape of some accessories or the materials employed to make them.

Yet, at the same time, we could argue that a sci-fi saga or the different remakes of particular sci-fi films can offer us the chance to study and explore various fashion trends. A good example is offered by Flash Gordon films.

This post is just an extract taken from a longer essay I've been working on and therefore briefly focuses only on three Flash Gordon films, but I hope it will provide you with some interesting inspirations.    

In the 1936 version of Flash Gordon, directed by Frederick Stephani and featuring Buster Crabbe as Flash and Jean Rogers as Dale Arden, planet Mongo and the costumes worn by its inhabitants are a strange mix based on the antique/futuristic dichotomy.

In the film Flash ends up fighting in an arena surrounded by soldiers clad in Roman armours; Emperor Ming seems to favour capes in the Oriental fashion decorated with modernist geometric motifs while Egyptian inspirations prevail especially in the draped motifs of women’s costumes, reminiscent of Egyptian kalasirises and pleated skirts traditionally worn from the waist to the ankle.

This clash between old and modern trends in this film from the 30s perfectly reflects the passion of the Art Deco movement for everything modern, but also its attraction for traditional and primeval forms such as images from Egyptian fashion and exotic inspirations coming from the Far East. 

Sets and costumes changed when Flash moved to another planet: in Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938), directed by Ford Beebe and Robert Hill, there are fewer references to Egypt, while female characters are clad in long evening gowns decorated with sparkling beads or fashioned out of shiny lame fabrics.

Azura the Queen of Magic had first appeared in a Flash Gordon comic strip in 1935, dressed like a vamp, in a bikini and a transparent cape. Yet in this film both Azura and Dale wouldn’t look out of place at the costume party that takes place on the zeppelin in Madam Satan.

Both the women wear bejewelled or lame gowns that borrow a lot of elements from the most fashionable designs of the time and that somehow also remind of Garbo's costumes in Mata Hari.

Mike Hodges’ 1980 version of Flash Gordon was a triumph of garishly bright colours and amazing costumes, courtesy of Danilo Donati (mentioned here and there in a few previous posts published in this blog over the last two years), better known to film and fashion connoisseurs as Federico Fellini’s costume designer.

I was five years old when Hodges’s film came out and I still remember sitting in the cinema theatre and hating every single minute of the booming soundtrack that annoyingly and violently shook me out of my costume-induced stupor.

Donati was one of the most talented Italian costume designers, well known for using the most bizarre materials to create outlandish pieces.

Flash Gordon naturally gave him the chance to play with some extraordinary characters and fashion unique designs for the Hawkmen and the Azurian Men or the Sandmoon, Cytherian and Aquarian girls.

Red and gold prevailed throughout the film, but Donati seemed to favour especially for the main female characters beaded and sparkling looks à la Mata Hari (check also the pagoda style shoulders of many looks and the rich tiaras and headdresses), mixing them with the most fashionable 80s trends such as tight body suits and reusing some Art Deco inspirations for some details of the sets such as the ziggurat shaped lamps you see scattered here and there (check out the following compilation of clips taken from the film embedded from YouTube).  

Ashley Isham’s Autumn/Winter 2010-11 collection provided an interesting fashion synthesis of these three Flash Gordon films.

When the collection, entitled “Flash!”, was presented during the latest fashion week in London, footage of early Flash Gordon films was projected on a LED screen, while the soundtrack from Mike Hodges' movie could be heard in the background.

Isham channelled the future through green, purple and black plastic skirt suits, dresses and trench coats decorated with geometric motifs created by incorporating in the designs fabric in dark gold and bronze nuances (the perfectly updated looks for Mariangela Melato's General Kala, maybe?). 

Suits in shiny lame fabrics characterised by rigid high collars in Ming-style provided the link with the second part of the catwalk show.

The latter mainly included long evening vestal-like dresses and gowns in dove grey, bronze and metallic shades with sculptural corsets or rigid structures that jutted out from the hips matched with fringed boleros decorated with sparkling epaulettes or worn with bold jewellery or armour-like gem encrusted shoulder pieces.

While the collection also featured a few romantic evening dresses in printed chiffon, Flash Gordon red prevailed in the long gowns with appliquéd motifs and metallic braids, elements that somehow called to mind also the looks from the 1938 film and that seemed to be updated versions of Donati's 1980 designs.

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