KEY POINTS:
Sometimes fashion can feel a little bit like a dress-up party at the local kindergarten. Models arrive on the runway in designer clothes looking like characters from out of fairytales, movies or outlandish fiction. And most recently, the fiction of choice seems to have been science-fiction.
On runways
all over Europe, at winter and summer shows, tall, skinny women arrived wrapped in silver, white plastic and rubber looking as though they'd been grown in alien pods, cloned by androids or rocketed in from outer space.
But it wasn't some dastardly Martian conspiracy to rid the world of Tyra Banks and take over America's Next Top Model. It was actually a fashion trend, one that, most commentators agree, was started by the uber-talented Nicolas Ghesquiere designing for old Parisian label, Balenciaga. Ghesquiere was paying homage to the label's history and also to designer Andre Courreges who worked for Balenciaga for more than 11 years before starting his own fashion house.
All-white, trapeze shapes, mini skirts, flat white boots and weird space helmets on catwalks were Courreges' canny trademarks in the mid-60s, a time when most of the world was obsessed with humans getting into outer space.
In a sort of tribute to these looks, to Cristobal Balenciaga's incredible tailoring skills and to his own childhood fantasies about sci-fi space travel, Ghesquiere came up with a whole range of crazy, ultra-spacey looks and moon boot-meets-groovy-platform footwear.
Ghesquiere has since moved on - he's still making beautifully complicated clothes only now they're best described as ethno-futuristic - more on this later - but the rest of the fashion industry has only just caught up with this designer's robotic cool. And the looks he started have turned into something of a major trend. It even has its own name: retro-futurism.
Believe it or not, this isn't an oxymoron. Retro-futuristic fashion refers to clothes inspired by visions of the future that someone came up with in the past. And that is why, although modern day astronauts mostly wear orange jumpsuits, today's fashionable spacewomen are still wearing white and silver, just like science fiction visionaries of the past thought they should. Basically, fashion designers are channelling the future as it was imagined in the 60s.
All of which finally brings us to the most important question of all - how do we mere earthlings wear all this clobber without dressing up like space sirens or astronauts?
It's easier than you think actually. What all these high-flying runway trends translate down to is a variety of relatively down to earth fabrics, colours and, occasionally, shapes.
So that means high gloss, plastics, rubber, shiny leather, metallic trims and lots and lots of silver. Also, in your average chain store, the sorts of spacey shapes involved are rapidly merging with another big, upcoming fashion trend, the one for luxurious and minimalist sportswear.
This just means shorter skirts, oddly shaped sleeves, figure-hugging outfits and sleek and streamlined shapes. Imagine playing tennis on the moon and you've got it.
And although that may sound a bit odd there are actually some fine reasons to try out this trend. Look away from the overblown, crazy alien on-the-catwalk and at street level we're talking sleek, elegant style with a Jetsons twist. It's like 2001: A Space Odyssey, at the local mall. And, if you ignore the tight white mini skirts, it's definitely an all-ages trend too.
Probably the best way to get started is by a process of gentle acclimatisation.
The easiest way to leave earthbound wardrobes behind is simply with a little silver, clear plastic or rubber added to your everyday wardrobe, via an accessory or two. A silver bag or chunky translucent plastic bangle won't alarm even the most diehard UFO-spotters.
And a metallic-trimmed heel, or even a silver ballet pump with black leggings, is a step in the 60s astrolab direction.
Any further than that and you'll need to start thinking harder about what else you're wearing. This is because the look tends to be fairly minimalist, with clean lines, simple shapes and monotones. Sure, you can wear your silver leggings with a vintage floral dress and thigh high boots, but then you'll be mistaken for Sienna Miller.
Unfortunately for retro-futurism freaks, while donning head-to-toe silver mesh is high fashion, it will probably never be the best idea for an every day outfit. Unless, of course, you are going to a fashion show in Paris or a dress-up party at the local kindergarten. Or you don't mind strangers asking you where your space ship crash-landed.
