Clothing of the futcha.

April 3, 2011 10:58 PM

Designers from 70 years ago predict the fashion trends in the year 2000.

Single link supermodel tumblr post -- Coco Rocha shares this video of designers' visions of dresses in the year 2000-- highlights: women will wear dresses with electric belts that regulate temperature, and electric bulbs taped to headbands to help them "find an honest man." Men will wear clothing fitted with a radio and a telephone, as well as compartments for "keys, coins, and candy for cuties."

posted by sweetkid (73 comments total)

it is spot on.

ooh swish.
posted by nile_red at 11:05 PM on April 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

OMG. I haven't even looked at this yet but I'm already SO excited.

What along these lines are we working on for seventy years from today?
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 11:08 PM on April 3, 2011

If I have one hope for 2011, it's that Flash Gordon-style Art Deco become the new steampunk.
posted by RogerB at 11:09 PM on April 3, 2011 [16 favorites]

This would be a great challenge for Project Runway.
I think it's funny that some will need temperature-regulating belts, and others will swish around lightly-clothed in scientifically regulated environments. I would take either one of those. I have a radiator next to me that's older than this film.
posted by amethysts at 11:09 PM on April 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

They were not far off at all about the cantilevered heels.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 11:10 PM on April 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

They were pretty close on the sheer tops, too. And those silly jumpsuits.

"Ooh, swish" got me pretty hard. I think I have a new pick-me-up phrase for when I'm feeling down.
posted by lilac girl at 11:26 PM on April 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

I wonder if the fruit basket on the man's head is a necessary component of the in-suit radio.

I suppose it could also be for storing fruit.
posted by hoot at 11:32 PM on April 3, 2011

Did anyone else feel like this was a little put-on? It looks more like what 2011 funsters would decide 1940s fashion designers would prognosticate. I smell a hoax...
posted by arnicae at 11:46 PM on April 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ooh, Swish!

I just bookmarked this so I can come back and record that. Maybe I'll make it my ring tone.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 11:51 PM on April 3, 2011

I just came in here to say:

Ooooh, swish!
posted by molecicco at 11:52 PM on April 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

The creators of that vid would have liked some of the fun fashions styles that are a la mode these days.

Loved the men's style, which was spot on in so many ways! "There won't be any shaving, colors. ties or pockets. He'll be equipped with a telephone, radio and container for coins, keys and candies for cuties."

One of the hair styles reminded me of the marvelous Amy Winehouse.

Arthur C Clarke predicting 2000 in 1964
posted by nickyskye at 11:57 PM on April 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

Candy for cuties.
posted by nzero at 11:59 PM on April 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

The sidebar at YouTube has this 1957 view of 2000 - shopping on the telly!
posted by unliteral at 12:04 AM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

i saw Candy for Cuties at Laneway last yer. good band, but twee is a bit played out
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 12:04 AM on April 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Late 1950s - ITN was established in 1955.

In the year 2000, I want to collect shark teeth. In the mountains.
posted by anigbrowl at 12:13 AM on April 4, 2011

armicae- Yeah, that's what I thought too. The voice sounded like a caricature, and some of the language (candies for cuties? really?) was just too weird. Plus it was pretty short, I guess it could of been a clip, but then what did it come from?
posted by catwash at 12:23 AM on April 4, 2011

I DID collect shark teeth in the mountains in 2000, but I was not alive in 1985.
posted by Felex at 12:23 AM on April 4, 2011

Infinitynumber and anyone else who needs a little more of this:

Ooh, swish!
posted by louche mustachio at 12:28 AM on April 4, 2011 [18 favorites]

armicae- Yeah, that's what I thought too. The voice sounded like a caricature, and some of the language (candies for cuties? really?) was just too weird.

That's what makes it seem genuine to me - a contemporary parodist wouldn't have gotten that tone right, and it wouldn't occur to them to use language that way.


This would be a great challenge for Project Runway.

It reminded me of the challenge on the first season, when they had to make a collection for the future out of thrift store clothes. (Remember when Wendy threw Kevin under the bus...? no, you wouldn't because you have a life.)
posted by louche mustachio at 12:34 AM on April 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

I predict that in 70 years photos of me in jeans and a t-shirt wouldn't have aged as badly as leggings, jumpsuits, and 'fashionable' clothing
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 12:40 AM on April 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Dear knee-jerk skeptics: A few seconds of searching confirm that this is a genuine clip, not a hoax. Pathe's own listing says it first showed March 20th, 1939. This is one cute then-and-now take on it; the clip seems to have been making the fashion-blog rounds for several years already.
posted by RogerB at 12:40 AM on April 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

electric bulbs taped to headbands to help them "find an honest man."

Can I have one of those, please?
posted by malibustacey9999 at 12:44 AM on April 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

louche mustachio: "Infinitynumber and anyone else who needs a little more of this:

Ooh, swish!"

I am eternally indebted to you. Thanks!
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 1:02 AM on April 4, 2011

You can express your gratitude by ignoring the way I completely assed your name in my initial comment. I don't even know where I got that.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:32 AM on April 4, 2011

Cantilevered heels? Check.
Detachable sleeves? Check.
Temperature belt? Well, they do keep my pants on and my shirt from bunching up around my neck, so, check.
Where's my candy?!
posted by iamkimiam at 1:33 AM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

THE ASTOUNDING WORLD OF THE FUTURE!
posted by loquacious at 1:39 AM on April 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

In the future, we won't need clothes. People will be so advanced in their attitudes, their sense of self, that the whole charade of personal dress will become obsolete. You wake up, you think about what you are going to wear today, and you realize that you don't need to wear anything, because your body is beautiful, and it's not particularly cold today. You walk naked through the streets, nodding occasionally to others that you pass by, because they too are naked and there is an unspoken agreement that nudity is the new clothing. Others will visit clothing stores, trying on different outfits in small changing rooms, equipped only with a bench and a full-length mirror. But only because it's retro.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:04 AM on April 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

You're reading Samuel Daleny too? He's got lots of random nudity and outlandish outfits in his future. I hope it's the opposite - we'll all wear burquas or Morphsuits with programmable screens so we can be IRL who we are online.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 2:10 AM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

iPhone ringtone version of louche mustachio's file:
Ooo swish!
posted by _Lasar at 2:13 AM on April 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Natalia Allen is already working on the fashion of the future. Organic phase change materials, non-petroleum based materials, illuminated clothing. Good stuff.
posted by jeanmari at 2:21 AM on April 4, 2011

In the future, clothes will literally make the man. Somebody will wake up and find a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt, and become a lumberjack. Another will awake to find medical scrubs in the closet and assume the persona of a doctor or nurse. Finding the vestments of a priest, somebody will devote himself to God.

In the future, fashion design will be powerful enough to save your soul.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:21 AM on April 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Twoleftfeet's plan works especially well if everyone is hooked up with headsets etc to give them all necessary instructions as and when required, including instructions to the wearers of police uniforms to restrain and punish those disobedient to their roles ...
posted by aeschenkarnos at 2:31 AM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

In the future, due to food shortages, all clothes will become edible. People will wear a shirt for a day or two, then eat it. You'll meet a friend, compliment your friend's attire, then have lunch together, eating that same attire. During cold months, heavier garments - parkas, furs, etc. - will be worn to keep out the cold. Then they will be eaten. In summer months, people will complain that bathing suits and t-shirts are not enough of a meal.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:44 AM on April 4, 2011 [6 favorites]

It's the sleeves what does it.
posted by flyingsquirrel at 4:17 AM on April 4, 2011

"coins, keys, and candy for cutey." and apparently a babylonian beard.
posted by crunchland at 4:20 AM on April 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

"It's the sleeve what does it"
It's a shame the narrator's dialect couldn't have survived until 2000.
posted by klarck at 4:22 AM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oops, jinx
posted by klarck at 4:22 AM on April 4, 2011

Arthur C Clarke predicting 2000 in 1964

Clarke indeed predicted was has actually happened.
posted by elpapacito at 4:36 AM on April 4, 2011

So they predicted Lady Gaga's wordrobe?
posted by Splunge at 4:42 AM on April 4, 2011

wardrobe dammit!
posted by Splunge at 4:43 AM on April 4, 2011

That wedding dress was pure 1980's.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 4:52 AM on April 4, 2011

Came for the fashions, stayed for the "oooooh swish"!

Monday just got so much better. Thank you.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:06 AM on April 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

I hate to think about what I'll be wearing 70 years from now because it looks suspiciously like a diaper.
posted by black rainbows at 5:53 AM on April 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

It was pretty much spot-on with regards to men's lack of shaving, abandonment of neckties and attached phones but they totally off on the headgear and "Bat Utility Belt". Not bad really.
posted by tommasz at 5:59 AM on April 4, 2011

"... he'll be fitted with a telephone and a radio ..."

Not far off. They forgot to add "camera & GPS system" to the standard man's roving technological suite. But then, most phones of 2000 lacked these features ...
posted by EatTheWeak at 6:02 AM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's the sleeves what does it.

Anybody else hear Ian Carmichael doing Lord Peter Wimsey?
posted by benito.strauss at 6:05 AM on April 4, 2011

If I have one hope for 2011, it's that Flash Gordon-style Art Deco become the new steam punk


I've got the shiny trousers, let's do this.
posted by The Whelk at 6:10 AM on April 4, 2011

So they predicted Lady Gaga's wordrobe?

Especially the metal dress with a disco stick hat.
posted by iviken at 6:11 AM on April 4, 2011

If I have one hope for 2011, it's that Flash Gordon-style Art Deco become the new steam punk

On one hand I'm with you, on the other hand, I don't want the internet to overdo and ruin another cool aesthetic.
posted by EatTheWeak at 6:35 AM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Okay, looks like I know what I'm gonna be wearing to the next mefi meetup.
posted by Greg Nog at 6:42 AM on April 4, 2011

I had a copy of some Omni Magazine publication with predictions for the year 2000 and 2010.

The only one I remember is that we'd all be wearing temperature-controlled unitards. I am frankly disappointed that this never came true.
posted by muddgirl at 6:46 AM on April 4, 2011

I keep forgetting that the futuristic year of 2000 already happened, more than a decade ago. The video is telling me to look forward but I have to look backward instead. Kind of a strange feeling.

Anyway, I'd rather have most of the 1939 future fashions today, than the 1989 future fashions.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 6:50 AM on April 4, 2011

I don't think anyone could have predicted how big jeans became in casual wear, though. Part of me mourns the loss of dresses, gloves and hats for women going out anywhere, and men with suits and hats or suspenders and trousers.

But then I think of having to launder and iron all those clothes, and I'm look, "Ooh, swish!"
posted by misha at 7:37 AM on April 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Men will wear clothing fitted with a radio and a telephone, as well as compartments for "keys, coins, and candy for cuties."

At least they got that part right.
posted by Talez at 7:41 AM on April 4, 2011

My favorite future is 1950s future. Then 1930s-40s future, then 1980s future (which is a guilty pleasure). 1970s future is too busy and dreary. Today's future sucks.
posted by penduluum at 7:56 AM on April 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

I am going to be wearing the same thing as steambadger is already wearing every day (except Fridays).
posted by Xoebe at 8:31 AM on April 4, 2011

I don't think anyone could have predicted how big jeans became in casual wear, though. Part of me mourns the loss of dresses, gloves and hats for women going out anywhere, and men with suits and hats or suspenders and trousers.

Following the (very very general) trend in menswear of casual clothing becoming fancy clothing, I await with glee the day when men will wear jeans to a formal wedding and cutoff sweat pants to their job on Wall Street.
posted by muddgirl at 9:52 AM on April 4, 2011

The guy at the end surprised me! I have an old ad of him framed in my dining room that is that guy in color with "Fashions of the Future" bannered below it! I found it in an old box of stuff at my Grandma's house when she died and thought it was great.

This must have been part of a whole promotion or something - mine isn't dated and I just assumed that it came from the World's Fair in 1933.
posted by Tchad at 10:03 AM on April 4, 2011

I don't think anyone could have predicted how big jeans became in casual wear

Without meaning to disagree completely, isn't a lot of the function of jeans pretty much predicted correctly by all the one-piece jumpsuits here? Casual wear-everywhere convenience and simplicity supplanting more complexly coded ideas of appropriate attire, that sort of thing? I think if you'd told these designers how big what they knew as "dungarees" would become in postwar America, they wouldn't be surprised at the simplification of complex dress codes and the reduction of formality, just at the new class component — the real surprise of postwar fashion for them would just be the idea that dressing like a laborer makes you look authentic, rather than merely poor. (Some good cultural historian must have written on this topic already, but I don't know where. Suggestions?)
posted by RogerB at 10:09 AM on April 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Today's future sucks.

It's essentially today's present, but everything is worse, and maybe holographic video displays if you're lucky.
posted by codacorolla at 10:27 AM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

One thing that always stands out to me in a lot of these visions of the future predictions is how often they predict meals will come in pill form. For years this was as an accepted part of the future as flying cars and shiny unitards.

Was eating in the 40s-70s such a hassle that people longed for the day they could just pop a pill and be done with it?
posted by Bonzai at 10:44 AM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

In the year two-thousand...... In the year two-thousanddddddddd!
posted by dracomarca at 10:45 AM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Was eating in the 40s-70s such a hassle that people longed for the day they could just pop a pill and be done with it?

Actually, it was a lot more labor on all fronts from shopping and marketing to cooking and cleanup. There's thousands of ways eating has become more convenient - but not necessarily better.

The quick and easy meal in a pill is represented by the hundreds/thousands of choices of fast food. People drive through a restaurant or call a delivery service, or just pop a frozen box into ye olde Radar Range to get a hot meal fast, then they dispose of all the packaging or cutlery, if any. No shopping, no cooking, no cleanup.

In a very real sense the epitome of modern food and eating is the lowly McDonald's cheeseburger. Millions are served every day, each nearly identical, each wrapped in it's own little sheet of disposable paper, each about as appetizing as swallowing a pill for dinner.

Even with the hundreds of advancements in the modern kitchen from microwaves to powered mixing machines to countertop grills to real future tech like induction cooktops, people spend less time in kitchens actually cooking food than ever. People seem to mainly open packages and heat their contents in kitchens these days.

This isn't much more depressing nor less futuristic than eating pills for dinner.
posted by loquacious at 12:09 PM on April 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

You're reading Samuel Daleny too? He's got lots of random nudity and outlandish outfits in his future.

Yes, and he's a subtle enough writer that it's easy to miss if you're not reading carefully.

There was the "wow" moment the first time I read Triton when I realized Bron's assessment of the clothing styles of the people he sees on Earth as incredibly drab and uniform-like just meant they were dressing much like most people dress now.
posted by aught at 1:37 PM on April 4, 2011

Perhaps the coolest museum exhibit I've ever been to was 17 years ago at the V&A Museum in London, about Fashion from the 1890s to the 1990s. What made it so awesome, however, was not just the incredible recreations of scenes and costumes, but that almost every one of them had a soundtrack.

So you weren't just seeing Zoot Suits, but hearing and reading about the history of Big Band along with them. Tie-Dye came with psychadelic rock. Etc.

This seems obvious, of course, but it seems like most fashion exhibits would bypass the musical elements which shaped them. By tying the fashions to musical genres, the exhibit showed not only how they came about and caught on, but essentially became a history of (Western) subcultures through the twentieth century.

My point, basically, is tat if you want to predict fashion in 2080, it's really simple. Just predict what music will be like then, and how it will express itself visually.

Easy, right?
posted by Navelgazer at 2:11 PM on April 4, 2011

aught: "There was the "wow" moment "

I think you mean an "oooh swish" moment.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 2:45 PM on April 4, 2011

There was the "wow" moment the first time I read Triton when I realized Bron's assessment of the clothing styles of the people he sees on Earth as incredibly drab and uniform-like just meant they were dressing much like most people dress now.

That's what I'm reading now. Honestly, that future seems like too much work. We're moving toward it now though, with the decline of suits and stuff.
Of course, in my ideal future we're just data...
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:35 PM on April 4, 2011

In a very real sense the epitome of modern food and eating is the lowly McDonald's cheeseburger. Millions are served every day, each nearly identical, each wrapped in it's own little sheet of disposable paper, each about as appetizing as swallowing a pill for dinner.

I'd replace cheeseburger with the $1 McDouble, but otherwise that's spot on. I hadn't even considered it that way.

Now when I see a Jetsons episode or that one Flintstones where they go into the future for some reason, and the meal-in-a-pill trope get trotted out, instead of being bemused I'll just get depressed.

So thanks for that.
posted by Bonzai at 4:03 PM on April 4, 2011

Based on what I see kids wearing these days, they hit it out of the park with the little beard prediction.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:19 PM on April 4, 2011

The "ooh, swish" happened when the woman was flashing her leg, but I'm betting the guy was pining for one of the dude designers.
posted by anothermug at 7:09 PM on April 4, 2011

If Macdonald's cheeseburgers are so vile how come millions of people keep buying them every day Bonzai? People like them because they're simple and quick and predictable, not in spite of that, and they eat a lot of other stuff too.

I doubt people's choice of cuisine these days is in any way impoverished and debased compared to 70 years ago. People eat an incredibly wide variety of food from lots of different countries these days, did anyone in the world tuck into say Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Italian and Chinese food on a regular basis without a second thought as many people do now? The range of food in any supermarket is incredible compared to the 1970s, never mind the 1940s. In Britain or most of the USA back then you'd be raised on meat and two veg, eat little else your entire life and die with some cold mashed potato and congealed gravy still sitting on your plate without thinking anything of it.

The problems with most visions of the future is that they imagine a world which is just as it already is, only more so. Future cities of the 1930s were full of lots of really big airships. In reality things in the future turn out either exactly the same or completely different. I'm just impressed this one doesn't imagine everyone in the world wearing exactly the same type of unisex single colour jump suit, because it's what everyone else did for decades, despite there being no sign whatsoever of it ever happening.
posted by joannemullen at 5:18 AM on April 5, 2011

My fanny pack does, indeed, currently contain (among other things) coins, keys, and a lollipop for my daughter. Also a telephone that plays music. Spot on, Pathetone!
posted by luvcraft at 10:10 AM on April 5, 2011

I predict in the future pants will begin to rise up. Right now pants are down. Back in the 40's the men's waistlines were higher, like women's 1982-style Jordache jeans where the waist was right about at the armpit. So anyway with a lot of young urban style we are at full-sag now, with pants near the knees and underpants filling in from the knees up and a second pair of underpants beneath that because even the first pair of boxers is so low they won't decently cover anyone's butt.

This will change of course. Eventually the sag will go mainstream, it will catch on in high society the way jeans went from workwear to daily wear and everyone will be doing it, we'll even have weddings with tuxedos where the cummerbund is wrapped around the thighs and we're all walking like Dick Van Dyke doing the penguin impression in Mary Poppins but everyone will agree that it's the style. And then the inevitable backlash will strike, and pants will rise.

It will start in the inner cities first. Some kid will realize we don't need one belt for each pants leg after stumbling across an honest-to-God waist-size belt in an antique store. Adults will start complaining loudly about these young kids today and their long pants, and their loud music, and why can't they just listen to some nice Snoop Dog or Pantera like they play on the oldies station? It was good enough for our generation by God...

Eventually the pants will rise to their apex, we'll hit the armpits and can go no further; when this happens of course we will see the development of shorter legs, until the inevitable conclusion when pants start at the armpits but the legs stop at the hip, like the short shorts Hooters girls wear nowadays; and thanks to the decades of saggy pants we will probably regard bare legs as an atrocious shameful display of skin, so we will all end up wearing these ridiculous pants over the top of boxers that stop at our ankles.

So, the first time you stop on the street to adjust your smartly sagging Brooks Brothers dress slacks/3 boxer combo and out of the corner of your eye you see young urban hoodlums sporting their highwaters - just know it's starting, and remember I called it here today.
posted by caution live frogs at 2:14 PM on April 5, 2011 [2 favorites]