Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/17/the-over-the-top-space-fashions-of-star-trek-tos.html
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Weren’t they supposed to be the equivalent of Vegas dancers, or some such? So by comparison, not really that silly?
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We just watched that last Saturday. Me and my GF do a Star Trek on netflix after Svengoolie. If you have ME TV, that episode will be on this Saturday. (We are a week ahead somehow.)
The fuzzy navels… was this because it was still considered risque to show belly buttons?
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I scrolled through. They failed to mention the mod masterpiece that is the Classic Trek Yeoman uniform?
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In fairness the red glasses Diana Muldaur is wearing were a prosthetic not fashion.
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These boots were made for walking.
And that’s just what they’ll do.
One of these days, there’ gonna walk all over you.
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The left one looks like something Tony Little would wear.
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You can thank William “Bill” Ware Theiss for all those over the top 60s designer pastiches.
My nerd, let me show it to U.
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As opposed to the banana hair clip that Geordi LaForge wore on his face as a 1980’s fashion statement. 
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Wish I had a knitting pattern for that fringey one-shouldered lavender number in the top pic. AMAZING.
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Those are some happy, happy tribbles.
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Or was it a Fram air filter?
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The cocktail lounge looks are no surprise. One selling point from Rodenberry was that he could do a good looking science fiction space opera on the cheap, so there were a lot of recycled sets, improvised props - the infamous sick bay salt & pepper set - and catch as catch can in the costumes. Some of the early episodes looked like they even were filmed in 1960s cocktail lounges complete with palms and stylish lights. (Could this have been the influence of Lucille Ball, a big backer of the show, who had a cocktail lounge owner husband in one of her own earlier shows?)
It must have been massive fun working on the show, lining up props, figuring out the “look” and recycling old sets. This was a golden age for Madison Avenue and pop art with Andy Warhol recycling Brillo boxes.
Rodenberry was noted for complaining that stuff wasn’t alien enough. Supposedly, he felt that way about a potted plant offered by someone in the props department, so he yanked it out of its pot and jammed it back in roots up, saying that that was what a real alien plant would look like. The costumes often ran into network censorship. Apparently, top side decolletage was fine, within limits, but underboob, as we now call it, was too much for the 1960s home audience.
Nowadays we have CGI, 3D printing and an entire network of science fiction prop, costume and set providers. Back then, none of this existed. Most science fiction shows and movies were pretty awful in terms of matching one’s imagination, but Star Trek did an amazing job.
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Jagshemash!
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