Visionary set designers devised the futuristic cities that appeared in some of the most memorable sci-fi films. Dramatically different from real brick and stone buildings, these structures turned into reality not only the dreams of film lovers, but also the visions of many architects aiming to reach new heights, shapes and spaces.
The history of architecture is full of futuristic buildings among them projects created for architectural competitions such as Mario Ridolfi's "Torre dei ristoranti" (1928), real buildings like Le Corbusier's cities or futuristic pavilions, the geodesic dome designed by Richard Buckminster Fuller for the Expo 67 in Canada or the Main Portals and Exposition Tower at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition on San Francisco Bay, and more contemporary designs such as Philip Beesley's alien-like structures or renderings for projects like "A Tale of Two Cities" by Billard Leece Partnership.
Yet futuristic architectures inspired not only architects but also fashion designers. Quite often in fashion collections designers referenced early sci-fi visions seen in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) or William Cameron Menzies's Things to Come (1936), and the dystopic futures inspired by Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) and Katsuhiro Ohtomo's Akira (1988).
Los Angeles-based artist Syd Mead is among the visual futurists responsible for some of the most iconic cityscapes in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner (he designed city backgrounds and vehicles for this film), Tron (see the lightcycles, tanks, solar sailers, and carriers), Short Circuit, Aliens and Timecop, among the others, not to mention his designs for two Japanese anime icons, Yamato 2520 and Turn A Gundam.
He also provided architectural renderings and industrial designs for the Ford Motor Company, Philips Electronics and United States Steel, Sony, Minolta, and Honda among the others .
There was still a field he hadn't conquered - fashion - at least until Opening Ceremony's Humberto Leon and Carol Lim invited him to do so. Both the men and women's designs from the A/W 2016 ready-to-wear collections include indeed T-shirts, sweatshirts, sweaters, and dresses digitally printed with images from the visual futurist's archives.
Women's tops and jackets with sharp shoulder lines matched with pencil skirts pointed at a retro futuristic world à la Blade Runner or Things to Come, but urban futurscapes were also evoked by the knits embedded with multicoloured crystals, the holographic prints and metallic textures of peacoats and parkas; the lacquered crocodile-stamped velvet designs, the shining devoré velvets in bright colours, and designs covered in spirals, the latter accessorised with oversized spiralling bangles.
The lamé-like silver liquid fabrics employed in some of the designs also seemed to be a reference to the shiny chrome surfaces of Syd Mead's vehicles and car concepts.
The designers transformed a few illustrations by Mead into prints and jacquards, including a 1980 rendering of hydroponic space agriculture, an imagined portrait of Los Angeles in 2013 from a 1988 cover of the Los Angeles Times Magazine (its streamlined architectures were also reflected in some of the most rigid designs characterised by geometrical silhouettes), and a rendering or the "Running of the 200th KD", a 1975 drawing that imagined the Kentucky Derby of the future.
In a way some of these pieces may end up being rather desirable with the fans of Mead's futuristic architectures, yet as a whole the collection - showcased at Pier 90 among inflatable versions of Mead's cars and vehicles and on a runway with a carpet that evoked the orangey palette of some of Mead's sketches for Blade Runner - didn't seem to add anything new to the Opening Ceremony glossary.
You may argue that the design duo mainly focused on presenting a future in which certain things - that is garments and accessories - will still be existing and won't really mutate as much as the architecture surrounding the wearer. So, rather than opting for something too dystopian or utopian that may have pigeonholed the collection into a box labelled "Space Age", they just went for ready-to-wear designs that at times looked rather banal or simply unnecessary (how many utilitarian pieces and army parkas will we need in our architectural future?) and didn't seem to have the time or the will to experiment with more intriguing shapes and silhouettes.
In his illustrations Mead crafted an invisible yet probable and almost tangible world, a reality in which we can still believe; Opening Ceremony may have moved from a reality conjured up by an artist fascinated with modern architectures, but, this captivating inspiration certainly wasn't visionary enough to guarantee this collection the cult status that some of the films Mead worked on have gained throughout the decades.
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