Futuristic Fashion: The Sci-Fi Mini-Skirt

Gabrielle Drake as
Lt. Gay Ellis in UFO (1970-71)

I think I've mentioned that I'm not a great lover of science fiction. But the future of female fashion, however, as imagined within the genre, certainly does excite my interest ...

I'm particularly struck by the fact that the mini-skirt is predicted to become almost de rigueur and worn by space babes throughout the universe, whatever their planet of origin; often silver-metallic in design, as worn, for example, by everybody's favourite Moonbase commander, Lt. Ellis, with matching top and boots. 

The question is: how did the short - often dangerously short and knicker-flashing - skirt become such a staple of futuristic fashion as conceived within 20th century science fiction?

It's been suggested that the pulp artwork of Earle K. Bergey, produced in the 1940s, was seminal to this development. Certainly by the fifties, the sci-fi micro-mini was ingrained within the pornographic imagination and the girls on Space Patrol regularly took raised hemlines not only to the outer limits of the universe, but the upper levels of the thigh; as did the lovely Anne Francis as Altaira in the sci-fi classic, Forbidden Planet (dir. Fred M. Wilcox, 1956).    

A decade later, when well above the knee skirts and dresses were officially designated by British fashion designer Mary Quant as minis, we find the women of Star Trek, including Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura, also happily showing lots of leg and thus affording Captain Kirk and his mostly male crew the opportunity to perv whilst allowing her, apparently, to feel liberated and empowered.   

There is, of course, no reason why very short skirts shouldn't be popular in the 23rd century; women have been wearing them for almost as long as they've had legs ...

Archaeologists have found evidence, indeed, that neolithic lovelies liked to parade around in such, distracting their menfolk from hunting and other activities (cf. Wilma and Betty in The Flintstones) and Bronze Age beauties in Northern Europe, such as the Egtved Girl, also dressed to impress by wearing very short skirts and midriff-baring crop-top combinations.

So, it's perfectly feasible that women in the distant future and farthest reaches of space will continue to choose playfully provocative outfits that speak of youthful exuberance and optimism; to keep on dancing and reaching for the stars, whilst their hemlines go boldly upwards and their nipples burst through like hyacinth tips, as Germaine Greer once put it ...    

To see more examples of sci-fi minis, go to the Mini Skirt Monday page (#190) on Retrospace: click here.