Fashion in an age of anxiety

Abstract

From new materials to computing, the conditions of the Cold War accelerated the development of products and technologies that would shape modern life. The technological utopianism of the post-war period and the idea that science could shape the future for the better went hand in hand with a persistent anxiety about nuclear confrontation. The frailty of human life was juxtaposed with the enormous potential for enhancing and extending human capacity with technology. The space race not only provided an enduring stream of innovations which made their way into everyday life, but also a host of imaginative possibilities for how products, clothing, environments - even the human body - might be redesigned for the future. This paper explores fashion, technology, film, design and architecture in order to consider how the Cold War and the space race shaped and changed ideas about the human body, both materially and conceptually.