Science is Fierce

Do sci-fi classics like Star Trek provide a glimpse into future trends and styles? Neil chats with stylist James Aguiar about the science fiction and facts of fashion.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and I'm also the director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. I'm here in New York City, joined by my fab co-host, comedian Lynn Comlett. Lynn, welcome back.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Hello. I love our new intro. Isn't that great?

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is so cool. All parts of my body are still shaking from it.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 0:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This week's show topic is on the science of fashion, and as well as the appearance of fashion in science fiction. And I have no expertise at all on this, except I have strong opinions about all the outfits I've seen in movies. But in a few minutes, we're going to get to an interview I conducted in my office with fashion stylist James Aguiar.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  We have a professional.

• 0:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have a professional, that's right. But first, we have to sort of do an update on the week's news, cosmic news.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Well, I know. We have news that has to do with our show last week.

• 1:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, last week, we talked about new life that was discovered in a lake in California. It's not new life, it's old life, but that lake has very-

• 1:18Speaker 01

  We are so cutting-edge now.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That lake has some of the highest levels of arsenic of any body of order in the world. So if you find life thriving in it, you want to understand, why isn't the arsenic killing them? Because it would kill us, like, posthaste. And one of the reasons it would kill us is because our body is not good enough to distinguish phosphorus from arsenic. They both... Do you remember your chemistry in high school? Do you remember?

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Of course I do.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just checking.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  I didn't even know if Connecticut was a state or not. I hardly remember chemistry.

• 1:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so-

• 1:49Speaker 01

  No, I do know that.

• 1:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in it, arsenic sits right below phosphorus on the periodic table of elements, which means they bond the same way with the same elements. And so, when you ingest arsenic, your body doesn't know the difference, and you could end up dying from it, because your body doesn't protect you from that distinction. There are microbes, however, that do know the difference and can swap it out and still thrive on it. And so, we reported on this discovery-

• 2:13Speaker 01

  That's what we found out last week.

• 2:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Last week, it was a NASA announcement that there are microbes in Mono Lake in California. That thrive on arsenic in places where the phosphorus would go. Since then, there's been some pushback in the scientific community, which they're always.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  You know, everybody's got to rain on somebody else's parade. Even if it's acid rain, they gotta do some sort of mean little rain on the parade. Stepping on their rainbow.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've just gotta make sure your nose is clean when you're doing science. And so what they they questioned whether, apparently they were coaxing the bacteria not to replace their phosphorus, one of the basic ingredients of life as we know it. They the claim was that they were like swapping arsenic with the phosphorus. Turns out that might not be so, that what they were actually doing was just discovering that the life is doing just fine in high arsenic environments. It's not killing them, they're not actually swapping it out. So so the full answer remains to be determined.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  They weren't like regenerating or something, is that what you were saying?

• 3:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, it's just that.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Because you lost me at swapping. I'm dead, I don't even know what that meant anymore. I was like, all of a sudden, I'm back in in high school.

• 3:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying that as is common in any frontier of science, you come out with an amazing discovery, there'll be other colleagues of yours that are gonna double check it.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Someone wants to step on your rainbow.

• 3:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Skepticism runs rampant throughout the scientific community because that's the only way we can be sure that people did the right thing.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  But are there ever final answers in science now? Like, it it seems like people can always question everything.

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's something, when all the data agree and everything's working, you're done. You're you're you're done. You go on to the next problem. So yes, there can't be final answers, like, Earth does go around the sun, in case you.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know that.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  But you can keep asking new questions and you can.

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, and so, by the way, so the frontier of science is not only always in flux, but so too, of course, is fashion. In fact, fashion.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Good segue.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was that good? I practiced that.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Neil's way of saying, move on, man.

• 4:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yes, fashion changes, much to the chagrin of many people who either can't afford to keep buying new clothes, or, but the fashion industry loves it. And I don't fully understand it, but I, you know, we have a good interview with James Aguiar. He's, Aguiar, I think I pronounced it right. He's a fashion stylist to the stars. He appears on the TV show Full Frontal Fashion.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  I love that show.

• 4:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Full Frontal Fashion, that's the guy.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  I know, he's good.

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, we've got several clips with him, and first I tried, I talked to him just to get an understanding of sort of where in the universe his mind operates in, just to find out, is there any connection between what he does and what we do? Let's go check him out.

• 4:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta be honest with you, I can't think of a more remote topic from astrophysics than fashion.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  When I got your call, I thought the same thing. I thought, what is he thinking, science and fashion?

• 5:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because I've seen science fiction movies, and somebody had to design those outfits on other planets, and somebody, one of your cultural brethren, is thinking this through, wondering what the future of fashion would bring.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Right, and I always say, the future of fashion, question mark, meaning, does it really exist? So, for instance-

• 5:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you mean, does it?

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Well, when you look at a futuristic movie, or a science fiction film, that some designer or costume designer spent beaucoup time designing, it always inevitably ends up looking like the time we're living in. So, can you really design the future? So, for instance-

• 5:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's interesting, because I remember old Star Treks. Back then, it looked cool, because I think it was sort of on the edge of contemporary design, but you look back on it, they're dressed like the 60s all the way.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  That is the 60s!

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is so, Lieutenant Uhura has got the boots, the tight whatever, the hot pants, it's the 60s.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  It's the 60s, and it's funny, because Star Trek is really, I think, one of the best examples, because it really was designing the future, not just in fashion or costume, but in the society, and how we expected to live in the future.

• 6:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  But if you really look at it, Uhura, Lieutenant Uhura, she was a receptionist. She sat there answering the phones.

• 6:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Answering the intergalactic phone.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. So, I mean, the future doesn't really exist. And if you look at Star Trek, you see the short skirts, mini skirts, which were big in the day, boots, which were go-go boots.

• 6:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They were go-go boots. They were disco cage go-go boots.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  Absolutely. The wigs, the bouffant hairdos, the blue eyeshadow with the Egyptian eyeliner. All of that is very 60s, but it was also, like you said, on the edge of fashion.

• 6:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it still got to look cool in its day.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  It got to look cool, and that's why we look back at it now like, God, that's fierce. You know, a fashion person would say, that's fierce.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  I love him.

• 7:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, don't he great?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  And what I really like is that he completely nerded out with you. The minute he said, did you notice that the minute he said this fashion really exists in the future, you could hear you have like a little science orgasm. You're like, does it? What does that mean? That's so exciting, James.

• 7:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Existential on me there.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  He just got so excited. Oh, my gosh, I love that.

• 7:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I have favorite sci-fi outfits that have been worn in movies. Do you remember the movie Barbarella? Do you remember that?

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Oh, you and every other guy. And if you say Princess Leia and Barbarella, I'm gonna hit you in the head.

• 7:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I saw Barbarella at like a time in my life where I shouldn't have seen Barbarella. It was like a kind of a physiologically sensitive time.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  You weren't sleeping through the night? Is that what you're trying to tell us?

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then fast forward, I couldn't stop paying attention to what Carrie-Anne Moss was wearing in The Matrix. That was just awesome.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Oh, my, you and every other guy, yeah.

• 8:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I'm sorry, I'm a guy. What do you want from me?

• 8:03Speaker 01

  No, wait.

• 8:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, how about you?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Going back to what James said, well, you want to know what I like being a woman? What pops in my head? Of course, as a girl, I loved Princess Leia, and I loved all the Star Trek. But again, he was right, James is right, the Star Trek stuff, because it was 60s. That was just cute. It looked like Barbie dolls. But I really loved Sigourney Weaver's outfit in Aliens.

• 8:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She was just a butt-kicking outfit. Is that what that was?

• 8:24Speaker 01

  And it was like, I liked it because it was very androgynous. It always looked like she could move in it. It was like the first one was kind of a jumpsuit-y looking thing.

• 8:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh, uh huh.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  I liked that a lot.

• 8:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, but so what you're saying is you want to be a superhero, like she was? Is that right?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  I want a utility belt, but who doesn't?

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we went back to James Aguiar, who's our, our, he's our guest this week.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  He called the horror reception.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  That was awesome.

• 8:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we went to find out what he just thinks about science clothes, sci-fi clothes, and whether they have utility.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Science clothes, really? Because I've seen some science clothes over at Hayden Planetarium, and they're pretty much pocket protectors and ugly shirts.

• 9:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's see what he has to say about the clothes of the future.

• 9:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When they're not wearing clothing of our time, they tend to wear these sort of silver costumes, and they all seem to have these broad shoulders. That seems to be a recurring theme. What's up with that?

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not blaming you for it. What's up with that? Look, if the asteroid came, you'd blame me for that, right?

• 9:31Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though I had nothing to do with it.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Maybe you did. I mean, that's the thing with you scientists. You never know.

• 9:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What we're cooking up in the lab.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Exactly. I think the thing with the silver and broad shoulders, it's designers working with technical fabrics of the day. So whatever seems futuristic, meaning like, I would never wear this on a day-to-day basis, but in the future, it might ward off laser beams, or aliens throwing rocks at us, or, you know, moon, you know, climate change or climate control on different planets.

• 10:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they have a utility of the moment that serves that need.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  I love him, aliens throwing rocks at us. Those are some not scary aliens throwing space rocks.

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He went from laser beams to rocks there.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  They might ward off laser beams, or aliens throwing rocks. Aliens don't have laser beams. I like that, though. You know, I have a, I have a pet peeve, and I have a friend who has a pet peeve about people, fashion, people wearing fashions that came from certain things and then not utilizing them for those purposes, like cargo pants.

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have cargo pants.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  But do you use the pockets?

• 10:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Totally. I look like...

• 10:42Speaker 01

  I do, too.

• 10:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got, I got all, I got, it's what I use because I don't carry a pocketbook. That's why.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  They're pretty awesome.

• 10:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, you're telling me you have a pocketbook, and you fill up all the pockets in your cargo pants? So you need two pocketbooks?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  No, I wear the cargo pants when I walk the dog, and I put all my, like, poop bags.

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha. See, what I did, I'm old enough to remember this. I wore... In New York City. In New York City. I wore, what was it, farmer pants? The, the...

• 11:06Speaker 01

  The overalls?

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wore overalls. Yeah. With the hammered slot and everything.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Did you wear a shirt on them, though, my hope?

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Were you wearing them, like, Studio 54 with one undone on one side?

• 11:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no. It was, yeah, it was just, I guess it was fashion influencing what I thought looked good.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Did you ever wear parachute pants? Because that's kind of a science thing.

• 11:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will, I will not admit to that.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Because parachute, I mean, those came, the reason those were being used, am I correct? We were talking about it, is because the parachute that didn't rip these?

• 11:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I own three pairs of parachute pants. I, I must confess.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  They were pretty awesome.

• 11:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I had a gray, I had a black, and I had another one that was kind of an off-red. And, yeah, so the...

• 11:45Speaker 01

  I had pink.

• 11:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So they, well, so they were good. I, maybe they became clothing because you could breakdance in them without tearing up your clothes, spinning on the sidewalk.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Right. But I didn't use them for breakdancing. That's my whole thing about fashion is, of, of course, that's why they, they came about, but then I was just wearing them to school.

• 12:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To school?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  I went to performing arts school. We were kind of dorky.

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, alright. I just wore them to clubs, but I couldn't wear them to my astrophysics classes. That wouldn't have worked.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  I just love that, your whole wardrobe. You've got overalls and parachute.

• 12:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. But guess who we have back on StarTalk? We have our favorite, Bill Nye.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Oh, that's right.

• 12:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, Bill Nye. He's, uh, I don't know how much into, is into fashion, but he's into spacesuits. Let's see what he tells us about that.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  It's science fashion.

• 12:24Speaker 03

  Hey, hey, Bill Nye here. Whenever StarTalk listeners find themselves in space, they want to look good and feel good. That's why you wear your spacesuit. It's high fashion and it keeps you from dying. In space, not only is there no air, there's no anything, which includes nothing to provide pressure against your body, the pressure your body's accustomed to. So, spacesuit makers, set you up with your own atmosphere. Your suit is its own spaceship. But the suits sewn so far are bulky, massive, and clumsy. A spacesuit is a whole bunch of suits, worn one inside the other. See, I wore a spacesuit for a while on TV. There's an absorption layer, a zigzag tube ventilation garment, a fan, and a nose scratcher. My suit had all manner of joints and hoses, and it took quite a while to dawn.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  But soon we'll have biosuits with form-fitting fibers that hold you together without the bulk. You'll be the hit of every party from here to the moon. And of course, as we tell every traveler, don't forget your hat, I mean, your helmet. I gotta fly, Bill Nye the Science Guy. I love him.

• 13:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bill, he's a friend of StarTalk Radio and he always comes through for us. I didn't know he put on a space suit one time.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  He wore it on his, on the TV show all the time.

• 13:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I didn't know that like it had a nose scratcher in it. That's creepy, actually.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  I think he was hilarious when he just said, "You have to wear space suits or you'll die." That's not scary at all, Bill Nye. Or you'll die. Hi, Ken.

• 13:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist. We've got to take a quick break, but more StarTalk when we return.

• 14:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Joining today is my co-host, Lynn Koplitz. Lynn, we've been talking about space fashion. And the way technology has influenced fashion and the way fashion has influenced sci-fi visions of the future.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  It absolutely has. I mean, Bill Nye said something, right, that stuck out to me in the last little Bill Nye minute, which was how space and space fashion, you know, the space suits are going to be holding us together with thinner, lighter weight material. And Neil, that's already happening in fashion with Spanx.

• 14:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spanx.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Do you know what those are?

• 14:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  That's Hollywood's big secret. That is creating, that keeps up the illusion of what we call women. And it's the most beautiful thing. I call it behind the scenes at the Electrified Parade. If you look under a lot of women's clothing, we're wearing now these, these space age girdles.

• 15:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is body sculpting, you're saying?

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Yes, but they're basically space age girdle. Girdles used to be like these hideous things, like sausage casing, and now they're made of thinner materials.

• 15:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But they're still sausage casing. They're just higher tech versions of it.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  But just a nicer, more comfortable, aerodynamic version.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's interesting that materials that technology drove to enable people to do a lot of outdoor things to stay warm in the cold.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Like waterproofing things?

• 15:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Waterproof. That's all.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Vortex.

• 15:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All of that. All of that has become just mainstream clothing. So... The intersection of fashion and technology is, I think that distinction's not even there anymore.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Can you even imagine not having Gore-Tex? I can't.

• 15:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, it's something that

• 15:50Speaker 01

  It's wild.

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a fundamental part of everyday life, you know. And among cool items that people might wear, I think of superheroes, what they might be wearing. You know, look at what Spider-Man wears, or Superman. Superman used to, you know, he used to get wrinkles in his pantyhose, and now he doesn't, in the old TV series.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  I think they were tights.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  I don't think a superhero wore pantyhose. I think that's what he would tell you.

• 16:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go back to my interview with James Aguiar, he's the fashion stylist, and see what he says about superhero costumes.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  You'd wear tights.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  The Met a few years ago did an exhibit on superheroes.

• 16:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember that, I attended that, that's correct.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Which I thought was a very thin idea for a show. But when you look at the technology that those costumes had, that's kind of what we're talking about.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where does technology come into this? It's beyond, it's more than just the cotton and your sewing machine, apparently. What kind of envelopes can you stretch here?

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Well, I always look to what sports figures do, and specifically what they do for the Olympics. That's the time when a lot of innovative, technical fabrics are introduced for athletes.

• 16:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like the swimmers had the shark skin.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 16:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't even know what that was.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  I know, but I kind of wanted to try it, but that's how it trickles down then to film. And for instance, the costume designers for Spider-Man say, you know what, that looked really great, speed skaters. So let's appropriate that for the costume.

• 17:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you know, just, so people understand, for so much of sports, you're moving through the air. This is not the Olympics on the moon. You're moving through air, or you're moving through water. So what you want to do is reduce what we call the viscous drag on your body. And you want water to be what we call flow over you in a laminar way. Lameter means it doesn't kick up little turbulent curly cues. You ever see these wind tunnel tests where they put a car in a wind tunnel? And it goes smoothly over the front and in the back it can curl up. If it curls up, it creates like a vacuum behind you and it slows you down. So you want to minimize that completely. So a lot of this, so I don't know if you knew this, but Speedo approached NASA to get them to develop a superior swimsuit.

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you want to know how to design a surface that can move through a fluid. Could be air or water. Fluid is something that takes the shape of its container.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  That makes sense. But then also, what about the sneakers? Like for pro basketball. I mean, I know those guys spent a lot of money to have sneakers that they can jump higher in and move better in, right?

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I think in the end-

• 18:16Speaker 01

  That would come from space.

• 18:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It helps when you're a good basketball player.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  But, but am I wrong?

• 18:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know how much space technology went into basketball shoes, but I know a whole lot of technology has gone into basketball shoes.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  And sneakers.

• 18:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I used to believe, I mean, I remember seeing ads for PF Flyers and they had the action wedge on the inside, but we could never afford them. And I would, I was wearing Keds and it was like-

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Your mother's like, "Just draw a little wedge on the side, you're fine."

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I could still run faster than all the rest of them, so I knew that was a lot of the worry, yeah.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Aw, you had welfare flyers.

• 18:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how that was. So anyhow, so the frontier of research, we have really smart people solving interesting problems, has affected fashion in ways, especially the Olympics.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  We need to see our viscose drag.

• 18:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Viscous. Michael Phelps wore just one, wore one of those, one of those outfits for the Olympics.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Did he have clothes on? I didn't notice.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, distracted.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  I like to picture him nude.

• 19:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's some claim recently that there's clothing that is self-heating. And I'm skeptical about that. And that was brought up by James Aguiar. Let's, let's see what he says about it. And I think I got on his case about-

• 19:22Speaker 01

  I'm pre-menopause, I do not need that.

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, let's check him out.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  There's a store called Uniqlo that has designed heat sensitive.

• 19:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no, wait, excuse me. I saw their ad in the subway.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  You're skeptical, right?

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Self-heating clothing? Now, I do physics, and someone says the clothing is self-heating. I ask, what is the energy source? Is there a battery? Is there a coffee warmer? Like, what is it? And then I read the fine print, and all it does is trap your own body heat. That's what any clothing does. That's why we put on our clothes in the morning. So maybe it does it better than other clothes. Fine, say that. Don't say that you somehow revolutionized clothes because it keeps your body heat in. Excuse me?

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Are you done?

• 20:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no. Let me keep going. And so I was pissed off. There in the subway, I had nobody to complain to, nobody to punch, because it's abuse of the laws of physics.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm the physics police.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  All right, physics police.

• 20:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, now I'm done.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  First of all, it's not. What it does is it redefines technology and how we decide to layer our clothes for warmth. So instead of, well, you could put cotton on, but we know cotton breeze, we know linen breeze. Silk is actually a really good fabric for warming the body.

• 20:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Insulator, that's right.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  It's a great insulator. And this is what this is. This is technological fabrics that say, you know what, now I'm not going to wear that quilted thermal t-shirt. I'm going to get this because it's super thin, it's going to not make my appearance bulky, or I'm going to be able to.

• 20:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then I can go out in the cold, dressed in many more ways than I could have before.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 21:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I believe it if they said it just simply keeps you more warm than other clothes, in a thinner way. Because when we all grew up, they said, oh, you need 14 layers and thick coats, and that's how you stay warm. I'm glad that's all been transformed. We'll look like the Michelin Man running up and down the block.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  Yes, and when I was growing up, my mother would put Wonder Bread bags on my feet inside my boots to keep my socks warm.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  So we've come a long way.

• 21:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, no, no, no, actually, no, the Wonder Bread bags was so that your feet can slide in easily through the rubber galoshes. That's why. Because I had Wonder Bread bags too, and that's why. Unless your parents gave you a different excuse for why they did it, it would not. Not, I swear to you, it's not to keep your feet warm.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  It wasn't to keep it warm, it was to keep them dry.

• 21:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dry, okay, that too.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  So, when you've got the rain or the snow, it was an insulator.

• 21:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did this scar you so badly, you had, you had this Wonder Bread moment on your feet? And you swore this would never happen again, so you became a fashion designer?

• 21:54Speaker 02

  No, what it did, made me realize how often and how much technology and materials affect our everyday lives. And this, this is kind of what your point of the show is, I think, is how do all of these elements affect science? And if you're not looking around, if you're not, as a designer especially, if you're not looking at materials and technology and blending the two, you're really not pushing anything forward.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So whether or not you're explicitly thinking science, you're freely recognizing that added science literacy in your profession can definitely aid your designs and where you head and what you're doing.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  It's everything that makes a person well-rounded and interesting and interested.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  I love him.

• 22:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jamie, Idr.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  I love that he just dissed you. He's like, "No, you were trying to be funny about the Wonder Bags." And he's like, "Uh, no, what it made me think was what your show's about, I believe." You know what I thought was really interesting about that, Neil? I, living in New York City, you know how, I live in a pre-war building, so it gets very hot in my apartment.

• 22:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But which war?

• 23:00Speaker 01

  You know what I mean.

• 23:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Be specific.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  My point is, is that it gets very-

• 23:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which way? Go out to the world!

• 23:04Speaker 01

  I don't know! Just stop it, I just want to get to this point, we're gonna run out of time and I want to talk, say this. Then, so I turn, I open the windows. And, because that's how you have to live in New York, you've got the heat from the building, it's an old building. And then you open the windows, so it sometimes gets freezing in the middle of the night. So I've really experimented with how to layer my blankets. And the strangest thing, and that's when he just said that, I thought, "Oh my gosh, that, I have experienced this." Is that I, I always thought by putting the warm, like the fleece against my body, it would be warmer. But now I've found that I put the sheet first and then fleece between the down and the sheet, that's the warmest combination.

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you could write up this scientific experiment.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  It was kinda interesting.

• 23:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Science and Lynn's bed, this is, this is good. Good to hear.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  It is a bit of a Petri dish, one.

• 23:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a bit of thermodynamics here. How much thermodynamics do you remember, Lynn, do you?

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I, hold on, let me pull out my thermodynamic book.

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's good because you can get energy or take energy.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  You're mean to me today.

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I'm not. Depending on your, your, on what kind of chemi-, there's chemical energy that can be taken away from something or given to, so cold packs at sporting events.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  I'm talking about trapping the heat in your body.

• 24:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In your body. So that's one way to stay warm. Another way is to make yourself warm from sources of heat. And it's just a matter of what kind of chemical combinations.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Like those little hot packs that you can get?

• 24:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's hot packs, you can rub them and they release the chemical reactions. Turn the pack hot, that's an exothermic reaction. And then there's others, you can do the same kind of crumbling of the crystals and it makes it cold. And you have a cold, that's an endothermic reaction.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  And it's amazing how that has grown because when I was a kid, my grandparents would say, you've got to put a hot, when they were kids, they had a hot potato they put in their pocket to keep warm and then they would eat it for lunch.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was this Ireland and, like, where did this?

• 24:48Speaker 01

  No, it was, it was the depression. They would, they had to.

• 24:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, the depression, yes, of course.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  To stay warm, you had to have a potato in your pocket and then you'd eat it for your lunch.

• 24:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Potatoes stay hot for a long time.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Now, kids should be lucky and they get the endothermic thingamagogy.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They just get chemistry to do it instead of food.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  And you don't have to eat it.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. Or you hope they weren't. That's right.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Is that dangerous though? Is that a pollutant, those things?

• 25:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I don't know. Some chemicals are, but most are much less polluting than people believe they are, simply because they're called chemicals and people think all chemicals are bad.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  I'm just thinking, maybe we should go back to the hot potato.

• 25:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we'll work on it. You're listening to StarTalk. We've got to take a break, but more on the science and technology of fashion when we come back.

• 25:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. And I'm here with my co-host, Lynn Koplitz. We've been interviewing this hour James Aguiar, who's a fashion designer to the stars. Actually, he's a fashion stylist, and he makes you look good when you need to look good. And so, he's been giving us insight into what goes on in the head of a fashion designer. And there are other things that go on in the relationship between technology and fashion. For example, people today, you don't even think about it anymore, but we have wrinkle-free fabrics, and stain-resistant fabrics, and fire-resistant fabrics, and waterproof fabrics. And we just buy them and just accept that that's what they are. And I don't know that there's enough appreciation going on to the fusion of science and technology,

• 26:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  of science and fashion as that unfolds.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  If you were around back when people were blowing up, remember those shirts that were from India and they were, they were literally getting lit on fire?

• 26:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't remember that.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  If you went near an open flame, you were going up in flames. It was like back in the 80s and they were, it was a nightmare. And now, you know, and then you appreciate it when you remember back to that stuff.

• 26:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and so, there are a lot, there's several ways to do it. I think in the old days, you would dip the clothing in these, in sort of surfacants that would give it these properties. Nowadays, they're, I've been reading that they've, they can actually grow, they can treat, treat the wool fibers themselves, the woven fibers themselves, and then whatever you make out of it would then have that, have those properties. Although, one, I just-

• 27:16Speaker 01

  And there's all that wrinkle-free, like the spray stuff now, where you can do your own spray dry cleaning, your spray-

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but isn't that just steam? Isn't just, that's not, because formaldehyde will make clothes wrinkle-free forever. I don't know if you knew that.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  I didn't know that.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the stuff that keeps brains fresh in a jar.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  I know what formaldehyde is. No.

• 27:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just in case. I don't know if you have formal-

• 27:36Speaker 01

  I keep all my ex-boyfriends' toes in it.

• 27:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And there's another one. I just read this story. The London College of Design professor Helen Storey created a magically disappearing dress made from polymers, and what, it's water-soluble polymers. And there's a video, there's a water, water soluble-

• 27:56Speaker 01

  So she made like a soap dress?

• 27:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A soap dress, essentially.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  So the emperor did have clothes on, they were just made out of soap?

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, here's what happens. So if you go into the water, then the clothes just dissolve off of you. And there's a video

• 28:09Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  of a supermodel wearing this new dissolvable clothing dipping into a pool of water. And the dress does, we have a video of this on StarTalk Radio's Facebook page.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Did she know it would dissolve?

• 28:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, was she not told this in advance? I don't know.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Just give a bunch of women these soap dresses and then push them into puddles?

• 28:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you can find it on our Facebook page. We have the link directly to this disappearing dress act.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Oh, I have to see that.

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My question is, why? Why? Why? Is it you're too lazy to take your clothes off before you go in the shower? Is that, what?

• 28:46Speaker 01

  My guess is because they can. I mean, that would be the why.

• 28:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fashion designers gone bad, I think is what that is.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  I'm sure Lady Gaga has one of those dresses, don't you think? Wouldn't that be great? You could squirt her with water guns on the red carpet.

• 28:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that would be great. The selective anatomical parts. You can find us on Face, we're at face.com/starTalkRadio. Otherwise, just do their marvelous, execute their marvelous search functions and you'll land right where you need to be.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Didn't the London Museum of Design, didn't they also make, they made a dress made out of like LED lights? It was total Lady Gaga stuff.

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I think it's, you know, why not? If you're gonna go there just to see, just to test the waters. But I'm more intrigued by this next frontier of what they're doing with fashion.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 29:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're now working on materials that have all sorts of, sort of sensory applications, for example.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  This is so interesting.

• 29:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they're making infant bed linens that smell like mother's milk.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  So they're made out of aromatic fabric?

• 29:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 29:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you choose the aroma that you want and

• 29:51Speaker 01

  So wait, tell me about the infant bed linen.

• 29:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so you wrap them in this and they think they're smothered in mother's milk. And there's some pleasure to that, I presume.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Okay, I know grown men who would want to sleep on this.

• 30:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it can calm down anxious children. I mean, previously, what we did with my kids is you, you know, simulate a heartbeat, you know. But now, this seems like much more sort of a passive, yet nonetheless effective.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  And now, tell people listening the other things that these aromatic fabrics smell like. Because it's really cool.

• 30:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so suppose you have a cold. You can use sort of eucalyptus-treated pillowcases. And then you can...

• 30:26Speaker 01

  And I've always sprayed my pillowcases with eucalyptus.

• 30:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right?

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Or lavender, because both of those things are nice to sleep on.

• 30:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So your bed is a Petri dish.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  I clean the sheets, you...

• 30:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's one.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Pluto is a planet. Okay, go on.

• 30:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So also in the fashion science lab, there are clothes that contain pheromones that enhance sexual arousal and attraction.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Oh, great. That's what we need. Viagra sheets.

• 30:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it wouldn't have to be sheets. In that case, it's just clothing. You just put it on your shoulder or the part of you that's closest.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What? Don't complain to me. I'm just reporting the news.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  That's just a bad idea.

• 30:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm reporting the news.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Men are horny enough.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  Can you imagine being on the subway, knowing that those clothes are out there?

• 31:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to watch...

• 31:08Speaker 01

  You've got some homeless guy rubbing up on you. I like your jacket. It smells good.

• 31:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's that scene in Trading Places, I don't know if you remember it, where Penelope sat down on the couch, on the chair in the police station, and this really creepy, like, homeless guy just leaned over and said, "You smell good."

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Oh, so gross.

• 31:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, anyway, so this is fascinating, and what's obviously next is if you need medical doses of various things, you can have clothing that has medicine built into it, and it gives you the right dose at the right time.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't trust that at all.

• 31:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 31:43Speaker 01

  What if it gives you too many doses? I think she overdosed on her cardigan.

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's one more. There's one where you can use clothing that actually does its own smelling, to keep track of what, if there's something in the air.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, what? What does that mean?

• 32:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so, for example, suppose you can imagine clothing that was sensitive to carbon monoxide. And then the clothing sort of reacts when you walk into the presence of these chemicals. That's kind of interesting. I mean, why not?

• 32:12Speaker 01

  That's awesome. I love it. If you could program your clothes to sniff out douchebags or guys that you don't like and crime scenes.

• 32:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're gonna, in a crime scene, that's right. If the criminal has a particular smell, the clothing can retain a record of that smell, and it's a much more chemically complex and uniquely findable fingerprint than fingerprints themselves.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  No, but then you're gonna have people like bathing in, you know, deer pee to hide their smell.

• 32:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go back to James Agar to see what he says about the fashion changing, because everything changes. Let's see what he tells us about that.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  Fashion is always about changing. It is always about deciding what people want in the future. Fashion designers design two and three seasons ahead.

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're always thinking this way.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  They're always thinking this way. It's the masses and all of us who sort of catch up with it two years later, three years later, four years later.

• 33:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta ask, why does fashion exist at all? I don't mean to be so blunt. I'm just, why do you make me buy something different three months from now?

• 33:19Speaker 02

  I'll tell you.

• 33:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm perfectly happy. The clothes fit, they work, I'm fine. Now you gotta come and say I gotta buy something different.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  I don't, but your daughter might, or your wife, or your girlfriend, she may say, you know what, I am tired of you wearing those jeans. And look at President Obama when he was wearing those dad jeans. He got ridiculed, not only in the fashion press, but the press. Fashion exists so we can, we can change.

• 33:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that you can ridicule.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  So, so that we can reassess.

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A worse dressed list.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  And a best dressed list.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 33:51Speaker 02

  And we can reassess how we feel about ourselves.

• 33:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's James Agar. You know, so fashion, it changes all the time, and...

• 33:59Speaker 01

  It does, but I don't think I agree with everything he's saying. My friend and I were saying this too, like, it doesn't always, it changes, it definitely evolves. But lots of times, it's making a play on the old, like just retweaking.

• 34:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Retweaking, so you gotta go out and buy something new. But it turns out, interestingly, and even Darwin noticed this in The Descent of Man.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Oh, Darwin.

• 34:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We can go back to Darwin.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Not Darwin.

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Darwin, yeah. He noticed that many animals in the animal kingdom, humans included, have some sense of what beauty is. Look at peacocks. They're, and birds in general, the plumage, particularly of the male versions of the birds, are, because they're the ones with all the fabulous featherage.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  All the pomp and circumstance.

• 34:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the bird kingdom, yes. So, so.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  The female peacock has got her little brown-tailed feathers dragging in the dirt while he's out there, "Look what I got."

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's kind of, clearly, they don't, not that we know of, have fashion designers of their own, but clearly, they're into looking good. And I'm intrigued by that.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  And they attract each other with that.

• 35:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They attract each other, they attract usually a mate.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  The interesting thing is they actually attract each other with the fashion.

• 35:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They attract something that they can make more peacocks out of, right, so.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  But I'm saying that definitely, you can definitely see that in the animal kingdom, then you see that definitely on the red carpet, because look at Jennifer Lopez in her little low cut.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was, there was.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  Versace thing, that's to attract a mate.

• 35:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not only plumage, but in song, and in how they decorate their nests.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Jennifer Lopez and Jennifer Lopez.

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, you know, the hot cribs on MTV, you know, this is, we do all the same thing that the birds do. Maybe this is, this is a, this is a deep insight.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  You know what's interesting about that? I have a friend who's a stylist, who told me one time that you can wear any color green, any shade of green matches each other because of nature. That we're so used to seeing all shades of green.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  And it's true, you can wear hunter green and light green, and all shades of green actually match each other, and I think that's really neat.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll keep that in mind next time I'm going to a scientific conference.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  And I have an interior design friend who actually told me that he uses fruit to help him with color combinations sometimes.

• 36:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me quote, let me quote Darwin, because he's right here with us. He says that, "On the subject of imagination and the love of imitation," okay?

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "It could not have failed to have led to the most capricious changes in customs and fashions."

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Well, you can use fruit.

• 36:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the woman's name who did that?

• 36:29Speaker 01

  It was a friend of mine back in Nashville. I don't even remember his name.

• 36:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You from Nashville? You're not from Nashville?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I lived in Nashville.

• 36:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You lived in there?

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Not from there.

• 36:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You're listening to StarTalk. We'll be back after this quick break.

• 37:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. I'm with my co-host, Lynn Koplitz. Lynn, I have a surprise for you. This whole show's been about fashion. Yes. I have something from our last season. I just had to put right in here and now. Here she goes. What is it?

• 37:16Speaker 04

  I don't like the outfits, so I wouldn't live in outer space.

• 37:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's all about the clothes?

• 37:20Speaker 04

  Yes. I'm sorry.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  I agree, but I like the idea of zero gravity, Joan, because without zero gravity, gravity is what pulls everything down. So it does give us that more uplift. That's the only reason I would even consider going in space, is the idea of I don't have that drag down.

• 37:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Joan, you don't need any more uplift, apparently?

• 37:39Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no. The point is, yeah, so you would have things up, you'd still have to wear those stupid spacesuits.

• 37:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, good point.

• 37:45Speaker 04

  They look like gay exterminators. I don't like the spacesuits.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good point. So even if you're floating, no one knows because you're wearing a spacesuit?

• 37:54Speaker 04

  Yes, you're in a stupid spacesuit. They don't know. You can't get your toes down, those big boots, the gravity boots. It is so not for me.

• 38:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you want open-toed gravity boots?

• 38:04Speaker 04

  I would like if I was good. I will wait to go on the moon until they figure out a way you can look nice.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  I don't like the outfits.

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's your girl?

• 38:13Speaker 01

  I love my girl, Joan. I don't like the outfits.

• 38:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's your girl?

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Oh, the two of us, you know, we're both not shallow women, but when you listen to this together, Joan says I don't like the outfits, and I'm like, I'd only go in space because there's zero gravity. What an idiot I am. Yeah, that's my girl. I love her.

• 38:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so we've got another last clip of James Aguiar, who, he's our guy. He's our fashion stylist.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  He's funny, too.

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he works on all the people who are on the red carpet. Actually, he told me if I ever won an Academy Award one day, that he would like fix me up for that. This is like so not going to happen.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  And if I ever win a Nobel Peace Prize, he's going to fix me up. What a generous guy.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He talks about NASA-inspired fashion. Let's see what he has to say.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  The other day, I was going through my bag of stuff and I found an old G.I. Joe costume. When G.I. Joe had hair and...

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is he now bald? I didn't know that.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Well, I think he's plastic now. I mean, this is...

• 39:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, when he had actually fiber hair.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, like fuzzy, fuzzy hair.

• 39:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, fiber hair, hair.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  And it was a Nassau space travel uniform.

• 39:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As they have for Barbie, too. There was Gemini Barbie.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 39:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, mhm.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  And it made me think, first of all, it was a well-made costume, but it was metallic silver. And I think that that's what you always see in the future. And then I always think, did Helmut Lang in the 90s have this costume on his inspiration wall? Because he did a whole line of Nassau-inspired fashion. And specifically silver and Mylar and technological fabrics. So I always sort of, my application is always fashion. Yours, obviously, is the world of science. But I always see, what's the starting point and how does it affect fashion?

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's interesting. And the more creative the fashion designer, the more elements they can draw from pop culture, from society. Because otherwise, dare I speak out of my zone, if your inspirations are not drawn from real things, they might fall on fallow ground in the interest of the buyer. Whereas if I have 12 buttons and you're hitting these buttons and I don't even know it, I'm gonna say, "Boy, that's an awesome-looking outfit." Meanwhile, I had a piece of that came to me from various famous events or various famous costumes that we all know and love.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Well, I think the myth about fashion is it's all fluff and it's just like, "Oh, you look fabulous and blah, blah, blah." When you really sit down with a Karl Lagerfeld or John Galliano, their breadth of history and what they know is so far removed from fashion. It's tribes and some indigenous tribes. It's history. It's art. It's science. It's technology. It's really little to do with fashion.

• 40:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All coming together to inspire every next thought that comes out of their mind.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  To make you buy.

• 40:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Buy as in B U I. Exactly. That's okay. Yeah, not B I.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  What to make you buy, that's hilarious. Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't know if I trust a grown man who has a G.I. Joe doll and his bag of things. Um, no, I do trust him. And listen, what he was just saying about the Mylar, Mylar, he's right because, um, my friend who's here today, who's hanging out, she was telling me how Terry Moogler and Claude Montana, who were big designers in the eighties, how everything they had designed, like everything Donna Mills wore in Knox Landing, remember that?

• 41:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Back to the cul-de-sac?

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Everything she wore looked like Judy Jetson. It all was like the big, the big lap, and the big lapels and the big shoulder pads.

• 41:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the shoulders.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  And then remember those belts we wore back then and had the, they bead, they were all very like, um...

• 41:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember that. Mm-hmm.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  You know, the weird, uh, what do you call it? Utility belt kind of...

• 41:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Space was working. It's working, it's magic.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Little waist, big...

• 41:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All we wanted to look like, that was it, you know? You know, we have tweets that come in. Can I, I have one.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  We've been tweeted?

• 41:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, we have. And so here's one. It's a tweet that...

• 41:58Speaker 01

  What is a tweet?

• 42:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, uh, get this name right. J.F. Duelster tweeted to StarTalk Radio, "Do the shape-up shoes by Skechers do anything for your body?" Now, I don't, I don't know for sure. I was gonna buy them, but I said, "These look weird," you know?

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Those are those little ones that, that look like they rock a little bit?

• 42:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They look like they're rocking chairs on the bottom of your sneakers. And it turns out, now I didn't do this study, but it turns out, just a few months ago, the American Council on Exercise, I didn't even know such a council existed, and listed a team of...

• 42:33Speaker 01

  There's a council on everything, by the way.

• 42:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They enlisted a team of exercise scientists to test the effectiveness of these toning shoes. And they found that none of them showed statistically significant increases in either the exercise response or muscle activation during any of the treadmill trials.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 42:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they involved, and they tested 12 physically active people. So they concluded...

• 42:54Speaker 01

  So the answer is no?

• 42:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, there is no evidence to support the claims that these shoes help wearers exercise more intensely, burn more calories, or improve muscle strength, or tone. End quote. But you get to be cool and claim that you're sort of on the frontier.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Oh my god, I love your science answer. There are no...

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Okay, your answer tweeter is no. They don't help. If you want to spend 40 bucks, knock yourself out, but they don't help.

• 43:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Put the donut down.

• 43:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, we're coming to the close of the show.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm sorry.

• 43:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. And in the close of the show, it's my turn to sort of give a...

• 43:32Speaker 01

  This means shut up, Neil. Um, I love you, Neil. Thank you very much. This was fun today.

• 43:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you're gonna listen to my clothes? Yes.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  No, I gotta pee. No, I'll listen, of course.

• 43:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I try to close each show with a cosmically inspired tweet, if I might. But informed by the show that we just did.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what I'm thinking this time, when I... As I opened the show in my conversation with James Aguiar, it was fashion and astrophysics. Where do they intersect at all? Do they, should they? And I realized,

• 44:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  me and my colleagues, we don't like to admit it, but yes, we wear clothes that have been designed and influenced by somebody out there. And maybe there are some fashion folks that said, "Oh, science, I don't..." But at the end of the day, without physics, there'd be no fashion channel, there'd be no TV. But without fashion, physicists might just be naked. You've been listening to StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.