André Courrèges, Paco Rabanne, and Pierre Cardin were high fashion’s torchbearers of Space Age style, but even they likely couldn’t have predicted Prada creating a high-tech suit for space travel. Yesterday, at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan, the Italian label and Axiom Space unveiled the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit that NASA astronauts will sport during the Artemis III lunar mission in 2026. The finished version of an early prototype teased this past year, the uniform largely resembles the vision of spacesuits embedded in the cultural consciousness but with a few extra bells and whistles. (It is Prada, remember.) Beyond the gray elbow patches, symbolic red stripes, and glossy silver visor, the spacesuit’s white material reflects heat and protects astronauts from extreme temperatures and lunar dust. It can also be put on in two minutes.
A luxury fashion house and a space infrastructure company may seem like strange bedfellows, but the partnership arose organically. Prada has already invested billions of dollars into developing custom made-to-order apparel for the Luna Rossa (“red moon” in Italian) sailboat racing group; the novel materials and sewing techniques in turn facilitated some employees eventually moving on to Boeing and SpaceX. Axiom Space, meanwhile, had enlisted the Apple TV+ series For All Mankind’s costume designer Esther Marquis to help fabricate prototype coverings. Tapping into fashion and pop culture is one way to drum up excitement for space travel, and Prada is eager to maintain momentum. According to the New York Times, the house’s co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons are “studying the design of other complementary objects for the mission, which will be unveiled in the coming months.”
