Sunday, 5 February 2023

Solarbabies (1986)

Costume Design by Bob Ringwood

While heavily inspired by Mad Max, Bob Ringwood's costumes for Solarbabies were of a more futuristic flair. The titular 'Solarbabies' sports team of the title wear a set of futuristic padded sports armor covered in blue, red and pink spraypaint in different patterns.
Their enemies the Scorpions wear more intimidating, gunmetal-coloured armor with masked helmets.
The Mad Max influence is seen clearly with the denizens of Tyretown, clad in the usual tattered leathers. Tyretown's guards are interesting in that they feel like a precedent for Ringwood's cut-up tire armor designs for Demolition Man a few years later, as they sport armor that is similarly made up of torn up rubber tyres!
One aspect that aged badly is the Native American tribe all played by white actors. The tribe's outfits seem to be made up of cut-up patterned fabrics arranged into either very revealing tops, such as the fit sported by Ivor (Terence Mann), or cloaks.
By contrast the 'Eco Warriors', another group of wasteland nomads, wear costumes inspired by Bedouin garb, though with baggy sleeves, deep collars and patterned lining and large panels over the waist.

The Eco Warrior costumes feel a bit similar in design to the Fremen outfits Ringwood had designed for David Lynch's Dune a few years earlier

More outfight 'futuristic' are the uniforms worn by the prison orphanage's staff, such as a briefly seen teacher wearing a prim beige dress. The orphanage's guards wear odd looking jumpsuits with lighter yellow mesh patches, worn with caps.
A futuristic suit was made for Sarah Douglas as the scientist Shandray. This also feels similar to one of Ringwood's Dune designs, namely the dress made for Lady Jessica.
The uniforms of the 'E-Police' wear predominatly blue leather, with the commander Grock (Richard Jordan) wearing a blue leather uniform with ribbed panelling over the shoulders and cuffs.

The soldiers under him wear motorcycle outfits that have been altered with extra panelling, though I don't know if the leather pants and jackets were off the rack or custom-made. You can see the greeblies stuck on what are obviously bought motorbike helmets!

Max Headroom (1987)

Costume Design by Jean-Pierre Dorléac

Note: Dorleac was only costume designer on the pilot episode 'Blipverts', and I have neglected to include the other episodes costume designers as I'm sure all of it was just rented or bought.

The American TV series followed the plainclothes costume sense established by the original British pilot movie, but there was some slightly futuristic designs to be seen in the pilot episode, the first being the snazzy jacket worn by Edison Carter (Matt Frewer) made up of black leather with fabric panels over it - the jacket bears a slight similarity to the one Dorleac designed for Dean Stockwell in the Quantum Leap episode 'Killing Time', which natch, was also set in a neon-drenched near-future...
Another slightly futuristic outfit is this rather prim looking suit worn by Carter's partner in (reporting) crime Theora (Amanda Pays), who sports a grey jacket with angular cuts around the bottom, and worn over a white shirt with a pointed asymmetrical collar. Out of all the outfits that Amanda Pays wears in this episode, I suspect this was the only one that was actually made to order for the episode, as the others look fairly contemporary.
There are also the futuristic uniforms worn by the various security guards in the pilot episode as well as the episode 'Security Systems', which have an angular grey panel with triangular buttons, and bear a slight similarity to the suits Dorleac designed for the Battlestar Galactica episode 'Experiment in Terra'.