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Luxury fashion is heading to the moon.
Prada is partnering with commercial space company Axiom Space to design the spacesuits for Nasa’s 2025 Artemis III mission, which will be the first crewed lunar landing since 1972 — and the first time a woman has landed on the moon, with Christina Hammock Koch part of the crew. Prada’s engineers will work with the Axiom Space systems team throughout the design process, including developing materials and design features that are fit for a mission space and in the lunar environment.
“The constantly forward-thinking ethos of Prada for humanity has broadened to [a] desire for adventure and to brave new horizons: space,” said Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group marketing director who is gearing up to take over the company from his parents, Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli. “Our decades of experimentation, cutting-edge technology and design know-how […] will now be applied to the design of a spacesuit for the Artemis era. It is a true celebration of the power of human creativity and innovation to advance civilisation.”
The partnership will break new ground for fashion, which has long held an interest in space exploration. The industry was inspired by the 1960s Space Age, with brands including Courrèges, Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin at the forefront. More recently, Coach, Heron Preston and Balenciaga have collaborated with Nasa on collections in 2017, 2018 and 2021, respectively. Now, fashion has the opportunity to get ahead of the second space revolution beyond a design standpoint, by investing more in technical materials and performance wear that can deliver on the practical necessities involved in space exploration.
And, while it’s Nasa astronauts today, Prada’s next spacesuit clientele could be ultra-luxury VIP clients. In August, Virgin Galactic flew the first crew of tourists just past the Earth’s curvature, with tickets costing $250,000 to $450,000. Other companies, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin are also exploring civilian space trips with high ticket prices.
While Axiom brings the specialised space knowledge, Prada will bring the sleek design. As space becomes the new luxury, designing a spacesuit that is desirable for potential high-net-worth tourists may become more important. Musk partnered with Batman v Superman costume designer Jose Fernandez in 2020 to design his SpaceX spacesuits, which he wanted to emulate tuxedos. On top of that, Prada’s extensive experience serving female consumers will be of utmost importance designing spacesuits that fit women — in 2019 Nasa planned to send an all-women team to space but had to send a male colleague in place of two of the women on the crew because they hadn’t set aside enough spacesuits in the correct sizes.
The Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit builds on Nasa’s Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) spacesuit design. The advanced capabilities needed for the spacesuits include flexibility; protection against the harsh environment; specialised tools for exploration; and innovative technology and design elements integrated throughout the spacesuit.
“We are thrilled to partner with Prada on the AxEMU spacesuit,” said Axiom Space CEO Michael Suffredini. “Prada’s technical expertise with raw materials, manufacturing techniques and innovative design concepts will bring advanced technologies instrumental in ensuring not only the comfort of astronauts on the lunar surface, but also the much-needed human factor considerations absent from legacy spacesuits.”
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