When selecting photos to post with a piece about “Fashioning Apollo,” Nicholas de Monchaux’s book documenting American spacesuit design, I found myself seduced by photos of the earliest prototypes, from the 1940’s and 1950’s, which look less like costumes or uniforms than like appliances.  Part Tin Man and part Michelin Man, they used metal and hard plastics to surround pilots and astronauts with impermeable shells.  And yet they aren’t like Medieval suits of armor, which enhance and dignify the body’s proportions.  They’re more like exoskeletons superimposed over the structure of the body.  They turn men into robots, into cyborgs.

It wasn’t really until the moon-landing Apollo mission in 1969 that NASA began to construct spacesuits from a sandwich of pliable fabrics, which is how they’re made today.  It was necessary because the hard, structured suits didn’t provide adequate mobility and comfort.  In the end the structure of the body couldn’t be improved.

I was at PS 1 in Astoria this weekend to attend a symposium called “Foreclosed,” about housing in America.  I walked through the courtyard installation, a series of white cables that shaped ghostly curved surfaces in the air.  And I saw the exhibit of art made in response to 9/11.  But what impressed me most was the architecture of the museum, which is housed in an old public school.

There’s nothing subtle, nothing graceful, about it.  The school is a hulking, symmetrical, red brick building with stiff facades and severe proportions.  The original structure and finishes have been left in place.  There are rough brick walls and wire security cages in the stairwells, and tile arches in the ceilings.  And the long hallways have checkerboard linoleum floors sealed in layers of varnish, and sagging oak doors leading into the classrooms.  A friend, an architect and native New Yorker, explained that the building design was once standard for New York public schools.  Some would find the institutional feeling oppressive, especially in relation to the forward-looking art.  But I found it, on that day, particularly reassuring.  In contrast with the symposium, which offered cerebral propositions about housing and living, the building offered shelter and space.

“I don’t do event dressing, because every day is an event."  This is the philosophy of Daphne Guinness, heiress, socialite, and patroness of the haute couture, whose clothes are on display now at the gallery at FIT.  It’s a brilliantly-curated collection of theatrical, avant-garde clothing, with large doses of Azzedine Alaia, Karl Lagerfeld, Gareth Pugh, and Chanel.  But the heart of the exhibit (and Guinness’ closets) is given over to Alexander McQueen.  Guinness was frequently described as McQueen’s muse.  She owned many of the pieces on display at the Met’s summer show, dressed for the opening gala of that exhibit in the shop windows at Barney’s, and, at the designer’s funeral, entered St. Paul’s in an enormous, black, McQueen-designed cape that trailed her like a storm cloud.  The day called for drama, and she delivered.

Alexander McQueen presides over the Guinness exhibit in another sense too.  His spectacular Met retrospective raised the bar for fashion exhibits and for museum display design.  Other shows I’ve seen at FIT’s main gallery, a flat basement space, felt less like special events than like archival study, with groups of plain white mannequins set out on flat stands with explanatory labels.  For the Guinness exhibit FIT constructed six small alcoves from mirror, glass, and fabric scrims.  And they’ve hung screens above showing the short films that Guinness starred in and produced.  The result is a sense of multiplicity and transparency that’s right in sync with the image of the lady in question, and of anyone, really, who participates fully in fashion.

Every building supports a certain kind of life, and sometimes that life is larger than the building itself.  The new Nicola Formichetti pop-up by Gage/Clemenceau Architects, constructed under the auspices of BOFFO for Fashion Week, is like that, crushing the boundary between theater and architecture.  A typical storefront space on a quiet TriBeCa sidestreet, it’s lined inside with faceted mirror acrylic panels.  Stepping inside is like stepping into another universe with its own peculiar logic of vision and light.  The ceiling armature, which is symmetrically and elegantly conceived, like the body of a racing car, returns reflections in complex ways that confound perspective.

The giddy, gaudy effect is that of an exclusive, underground discotheque.  There are, on display, costumes Formichetti devised for Lady Gaga and mannequins he styled for Uniqlo.  And there is, for sale, jewelry and clothing he’s curated, including a rack of vintage 1990’s Versace printed silk shirts.  There’s also a live DJ, monitors showing Formichetti-styled runway shows and music videos, and, acting as doorman, Rico “Zombie Boy."  When I visited, on a sunny Monday afternoon, there were groups of splendidly attired Gaga fans and fashionistas inside, just standing around being fabulous.  It’s a very high level of theater, made possible by a very high level of architecture.