The Space Age during the 20th century had a vision of what the future would look like. It inspired design everywhere at the time. We now have the perspective of knowing which predictions of the vision of the future came true…
…and which ideas now look wonderfully strange. Like this Chicago beauty salon that was trying to look like tomorrow.
The Fashion Center, Imagined by owner/hairdresser Fredrick Glaser and executed with the help of architect Ronald E. Zocher, was featured in the September 1969 issue of Salon Owner magazine under the headline “Moving Into Tomorrow, Architecturally.”
The combination of 1960s bubble shapes combine with futuristic materials. Hairdryers that look like escape pods sit on platforms as if aboard a spaceship. Chairs look like capsules. Clear plastic curtain doors surround the boutique. Even the owner’s office looks as though HAL’s voice might be coming through the speakers.
For those of us who have always loved 1960s Space Age design, this article is a little treasure.
Table of Contents: (Click to Jump)
What did “the future” look like in the 1960s?
By the 1960s, the vision of the future had developed a very recognizable look. The Space Age was well underway wrapping up with the moon landing in 1969. New synthetic materials were becoming a part of everyday life, and designers were experimenting with curves and molded shapes with plastics.
The future was not supposed to look traditional. It was smooth, rounded, and shiny. Furniture seemed to float. Technology became part of the decoration. I love to see these ideas applied to an actual working beauty salon.
AI Disclaimer: Most of the original photographs in the magazine were printed in black and white, so I used AI-assisted image tools to create some of the colorized versions you see here. I’ve included original scans and the colorized versions. Read full disclaimer.
Are they hairdryers or are they escape pods?
This magazine ended up in my possession through the wondrous invention of the online auction. Seeing the hairdryers on the cover page in my Ebay feed made my eyes bug out! Instantly added to my cart…
Most vintage photos of salon hairdryer stations are just a row of ordinary hood dryers lined up along a wall. These enormous rounded pod hairdryers, arranged sporadically on a curvy raised platform look like my sci-fi dreams come true.
And the walk up steps to get to your hairdryer!? I am speechless. I cannot look at it without thinking of boarding a spaceship.
The original article treats the arrangement quite seriously, even pointing out that the handrails on either side of the steps were a safety feature. But visually, the whole thing is wonderfully theatrical. Get on your gogo boots and go get your weekly set dried in style.
Meanwhile, on The Jetsons…
The Jetsons had already been imagining the beauty salon of the future when the show debuted in 1962. Jane Jetson visits the Galaxie Beauty Salon, where hairstyling had become a push-button, machine-assisted affair.
The hairstyling machine lowers over the head almost like a hood dryer. There is a quick little poof and out comes a completely different hairstyle. This is exactly the kind of future I was promised as a child watching this in syndication.
Looking at the enormous pod dryers in the Fashion Center only seven years later, the comparison suddenly does not seem so cartoonish that technology could make beauty routines much more glamorous and effortless.
Even the shampoo chairs look like space capsules
But before the dryer, you need that shampoo. Welcome to the shampoo station in space. No boring shampoo chairs here.
Each shampoo bowl and chair was made as one molded fiberglass unit. The circular chair inside was covered in nylon mesh and designed to move with the client’s body position.
I wish they had made the seat interiors at different angles in the photograph, so we could see how the mechanics of the seat shifts with the customer.
You might also like: The Curler Caddy – A Vintage Beauty Organizer
Shopping a fashion boutique in space
The Chicago Fashion Center was not only a place to get your hair done. It also contained a fashion boutique prominently positioned at the front of the salon.
The boutique was raised on another curvy four-step platform so it could be seen from throughout the salon and through the windows from outside.
Clothing was displayed behind clear plastic draperies suspended from a curved track. The curtains could be closed to protect the clothing from whatever was floating in the air of the salon, while still leaving everything visible.
I love this detail because it seems both extremely practical and extremely futuristic at the same time. Even shopping for a dress apparently needed to look like something happening aboard a space station.
The salon office of tomorrow
The owner’s office looks like a 1960s movie set to me.
The desk is molded into one continuous curving shape. The walls and ceiling sweep around it. It is kind of hard to tell, but it looks like the desk and a part of the wall panel are actually one solid molded piece?
Embedded in the wall above the desk is a dark rectangular screen. It is almost impossible not to look at that screen and think “computer”, at least in a futuristic movie from the 1960s. But the magazine tells us exactly what it is. It is a built-in television set.
It looks like part of a spaceship control panel, even though its most futuristic function was probably allowing Mr. Glaser to watch Laugh-In from his desk.
Even the office plant was not allowed to simply be a plant. Note to self… Clear large plastic bubble planter… add to vision board.
Plastic was part of the fantasy
Some of what made interiors like this look so futuristic was the use of materials that were still relatively novel and exciting. We look down on plastic furniture today, but in 1969, plastic still signified something sleek, innovative and modern.
The salon incorporated molded fiberglass, vinyl-covered surfaces, synthetic carpeting and clear plastic throughout the design.
These materials allowed designers to create transparent walls and seamless molded shapes that would have been much more difficult with traditional glass and wood construction materials.
The salon cost how much?
The article reads that the Fashion Center cost $200,000 to build. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $1.8 million in 2026 dollars. 😳
This was not someone adding a few trendy chairs and calling the salon futuristic. This was a major showpiece.
Yesterday’s tomorrow
We are looking at 1969’s idea of the future.
More than fifty years later, some of it looks surprisingly modern. Some of it looks unmistakably 1969. And some of it looks like the future we were promised but never quite got.
I am still a little disappointed that going under the hairdryer does not involve climbing aboard a beauty pod.
Colorizing the photographs
Most of the original photographs in the magazine were printed in black and white, so I used AI-assisted image tools to create the colorized versions you see here.
I do not want to present the colors as documented historical fact. I used the original color magazine cover with visible color information in the photograph and details given in the article as guides to direct the colorization. The results are interpretations intended to help us visualize the space, not exact records of every original color.
I also know AI image tools are a complicated subject. For historical projects like this one, though, I find them genuinely useful as an educational tool. Being able to carefully add plausible color in a timely manner can bring perspective to the present and make an old black-and-white photo of a thing a wonderful experience.
And it gives me time to run my business and make more great content for you, instead of spending hours making clipping paths and adjusting tiny historically insignificant details.
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