Honeycombs & Carbon Fiber - Design style of the future?

[Kevin]

Well, not necessarily the future, but at least recent genre movies. Faux (aka: fake) carbon fiber has been a look embraced by the street racing crowd for a while and it seems to have now been embraced by designers for superhero movies.

This an image of real carbon fiber. Innovations in the making process now allow for carbon fiber in a number of different colors.

This by contrast is the fabric used for the Under Armor backpack that I carry with me nearly daily. If you were a Seinfeld fan then you could it call it my European Carryall.

With those images fresh in your mind now let us take a look at some costumes from some recent genre movies.

First up is the Spiderman reboot with Andrew Garfield.

OK, maybe something a bit more recent. How about the uniforms from the rebooted Star Trek movies? The original uniforms were, after all, just plain fabric with barely any shiny parts to them. Let's take a look at Zoe Zaldana as Uhura.

Coincidence, right? Maybe. How about some movies that haven't even come out yet, how are they looking? Here is the suit worn by the Jaeger pilots in Pacific Rim.

Now that is just plain straight-up old fashioned black carbon fiber. The same look was used for the first GI Joe movie and will be used again for the RoboCop reboot.

Let's try something less militaristic. The upcoming Superman reboot perhaps.

Is it just uniforms though that are honeycombs and/or carbon fiber looking? The upcoming Agents of SHIELD TV shows looks interesting. Let's see what visual style they are going for...

D'oh!

 

[Jetshroom]

I think it's just a case of designers trying to inject a little texture into the costumes. (Except of course the Pacific Rim and RoboCops, that's definitely meant to look like carbon fibre.)

When dealing with superheroes, people don't believe in spandex anymore. Everyone wants everything to be "more realistic" and to designers that means texture and grit. If you look at the comics though, (Particularly in DCs NU52) It's seams and piping with a couple of armour plates.

But yeah, it's kind of a phase. One I actually don't like. "Why is it all bumpy?" I think to myself.

 

[pointyearedbastard]

I agree wholeheartedly with Jetshroom. First, I don't like the look. Second, I can't readily seem to enjoy change for its own sake. Third, I really hate it that everybody has to do exactly the same thing at the time!

Bring back spandex (and red briefs!) for Superman. Return to the Star Trek skort. That is all.