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Introducing the United Federation of Style! Episode 1: Mudd's Women (Patreon)

Published:
2022-10-12 16:00:13
Edited:
2024-12-24 03:36:44
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Hello there! I’ve got something new and nifty and a little different from my usual fare to share with you:

Earlier this year, my friend Samantha Rei and I recorded a little limited-run podcast miniseries called The United Federation of Style that’s all about the fashion of the future – specifically, about the weird wild fascinating fashions on Star Trek: The Original Series.

Samantha’s an incredibly knowledgeable fashion nerd (you may know her from her time on Project Runway) and an expert on clothing, hair, makeup, and cosplay – but she doesn’t know much about Star Trek; I’m a huge Star Trek nerd and I don’t know the first thing about how to dress myself. We selected seven great episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series and then picked apart the outfits, gossiped about the troubled behind-the-scenes scramble to create Star Trek back in the sixties, and of course we get a little giddy about the slashy will-they won’t-they sexual tension between Kirk and Spock.

We’ll be releasing the show in seven episodes here on Patreon, starting today and continuing for the next six weeks. I hope you enjoy listening to this fun mashup of pop culture, style, and queer-eyeing the Enterprise as much as we enjoyed recording it! (Update: Episode 1 of UFoS is now publicly available for anyone to listen! The other episodes will stay Patron-exclusive for now.)

This week, we’re kicking things off with “Mudd’s Women,” a goofy story in which the Enterprise picks up a scheming entrepreneur and some mysterious women who harbor an intriguing (and, because this is Star Trek we’re talking about, a weirdly sexy) secret. Though the character Mudd is a bit of a womanizer, in real life he was played by gay actor Roger C. Carmel – just one of many queer twists and turns we’ll encounter as we gallivant through the series.

Next week: “The Menagerie,” featuring brain aliens, bra trees, and a space chicken.

Files

Comments

Daniel Zafer-Joyce

LOVING this! Definitely up my alley. Some thoughts as I listened: the “gold” uniforms were originally green but they didn’t photograph properly under the studio lights which is why Kirk’s wrap shirt is green. It was made to match his velour tunic but its material photographed differently. Gene was FANATICAL about their being no fasteners in the future, no zippers, no buttons. So the shoulder zipper was an attempt to hide the zippers which on a small 60’s tv screen effectively worked. In the HD remaster however you can’t hide anything. KIRK: has developed a pop culture reputation as a lady killer and man-slut (but this is probably more because it was a more frank depiction of sex for the 60’s, which was more shocking at the time). But if you rewatch the original series without that expectation, most of the time he uses sex more intelligently, like a femme fatale, to gain a strategic advantage, and the rest of the time he’s actually very intellectual and respectful of women (two horrible exceptions: “gamesters of triskellion” and “turnabout intruder”). The Pinky Ring: belonged to DeForest Kelley and he actually told Gene Roddenberry that if he couldn’t wear the ring he wouldn’t do the show. It was his mothers ring who had died from cancer a decade earlier. He wore it as the character for every appearance, including the movies, and until his own death in 1999. Effects: A lot of the special effects were redone a few years ago and there is almost nowhere that you can stream the ACTUAL original series anymore. GLASSES: do they wear glasses in the furture? Yes, Kirk wears glasses in The Wrath of Khan because he’s allergic to Retnox-5 (I don’t think they could have ever dreamed of laser vision correction in the 70’s). Really surprised that in a podcast over an hour long there was no mention of legend and Emmy-winning costume designer William Ware Theiss. Who also designed costumes for Spartacus, Harold and Maude, Butch and Sundance, and the first season of ST: Next Gen (which is how he won an Emmy). Sad we didn’t get any mention of the Theiss Titillation Theory which explains a lot of the female costume choices (and some male costumes. Again, “Gamesters…”, probably a good episode to analyze). He was famous for creating sexy costumes that could still get around the censors. The theory states: “The sexiness of an outfit is directly proportional to the perceived possibility that a vital piece of it might fall off.” I don’t know where I saw it but I recently saw a dress on the runway that was absolutely a copy of two of these lady’s costumes from Mudd’s Women, they took the top of the green dress and the cutouts from the bottom of the red dress. They even kept Theiss’ green material choice. So his influence on fashion is tangibly still being felt today. Looking forward to more episodes!

Daniel Zafer-Joyce

I feel like you could do a whole Culture Cruise episode on WWT

Sally Jordan

This episode was delightful! I love fashion AND the original Star Trek, and the Mudd episodes were always very entertaining. I always wondered about the Vaseline treatment, which they seemed to use on any woman who was supposed to be deemed dishy. Did they keep a lens permanently coated with Vaseline? Or did they have to wash it off to reuse the lens on men and ordinary women? That stuff is hard to wash off!

Daniel Zafer-Joyce

Found it! Check out Moschino by Jeremy Scott, Fall 2018! Totally ripped off William Ware Theiss!

SG

Human Trafficking humor in the 60s: movie musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie."

Rachel Watches Star Trek

Ahhhh Matthew! We reference you in our Star Trek pod all the time because we love your work but never knew you were into the show! Would love to do something together! 😍 Can’t wait to listen to your series.

Sarah Montgomery

I know you said seven "great" episodes, but when I read Star Trek + fashion, my mind immediately went to Sylvia from Catspaw. I don't know if that would justify a whole episode. But maybe it would. Anyone who's seen it knows why.

Bryan Cybershaman(X) Logie

I always thought they used Vaseline, too! But I found a short article that included the following interesting information: The soft focus was often paired with romantic, swooning music. While the crew members were shot heroically in blazing light and sharp focus, love interests, on the other hand, looked more like watercolors. To achieve the effect, thin layers of plastic, or diffusion filters, were placed before the lens for those shots. No, as far as we know, Vaseline was not smeared on the lens. The technique came to be known as "The Gaussian Girl," named for the Gaussian blur. To be fair, not every female character was filmed in soft focus. Take Uhura or Janice Rand, for example. The technique was typically reserved as sort of "Kirk's gaze" point-of-view perspective. This was a show with expressive cinematography. The Gaussian Girl became somewhat of a trademark of Finnerman. Two decades later, he was filming Cybill Shepherd in a similar manner on Moonlighting, another gorgeous series. Since that last stand, soft focus had faded away. Source: https://www.metv.com/stories/ever-wonder-why-the-women-on-star-trek-appear-out-of-focus

Bryan Cybershaman(X) Logie

The idea that this was "Kirk's gaze" is very intriguing. There's a lot to talk about, there. 😉

Sally Jordan

Fascinating! (I say, raising one eyebrow.) Thank you for the information! I always thought of the effect as “Kirk’s horny googles.”

Alathe

The belt buckle looks like it's made out of tag board - just killed me. Oh, I'd love to hear a good discussion about "YoSaphBrige". She played that character so well! This has been a lovely podcast! I'm on the next one, now!