This Week: Sci-Fi Walks the Runway

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fashion, sometimes they end up creating iconic outfits and other times they create fashion which looks laughably outdated in a few years.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.