Prada Has Always Been Lightyears Ahead — NASA Just Caught Up
Close your eyes and imagine, if you will, the idea of Dune’s iconic stillsuit as designed by the deft hand of Miuccia Prada. Now open your eyes and revel in the very real image of Prada’s new body-hugging bodysuit designed for NASA's most stylish astronauts.
Though it’s meant for deep space, not someone talking about “desert power,” the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment is suspiciously sandworm-friendly. Its very official name comes from a series of hi-tech tubes knitted into the fabric to keep the astronauts safe and sufficiently ventilated.
The bodysuit is just the latest in an ongoing collaboration between Prada and Houston-based infrastructure developer Axiom Space (the maker of the world’s first commercial space station, for non-extraterrestrial nerds out there), who previously partnered with NASA with the 2023 announcement of a spacesuit intended for the Artemis 4 moon landing, now slated for 2028, NASA's first major spacesuit in over two decades.
The space race isn’t just a battle of billionaires with too much time and access to corny cowboy hats; fashion has also begun to venture beyond the exosphere. Under Armour made space clothes for Virgin Galactic in 2019, and sportswear brand Columbia has worked with space exploration company Intuitive Machines to develop sun deflection and insulation technology for the moon’s extreme temperatures since 2021.
Brands famous for developing technologically inventive athleticwear drifting into space make sense here but, actually, Prada’s lunar ambitions feel even more fitting. The Italian luxury label has always had a futuristic bent.
Miuccia Prada made waves in 1984 for introducing water-resistant nylon into her Prada collections with the Vela backpack — a response to the “old and bourgeois and boring” clothing she observed around her. “Suddenly, nylon started to look more intriguing to me than couture fabrics,” she told Vogue in 2021. “It challenged, even changed, the traditional and conservative idea of luxury.”
The Prada Sport (later renamed Linea Rossa) sub-brand became a key incubator for experimentation when it launched in 1997, with its 2018 revival — and the following year’s launch of its sustainable Re-Nylon range, made from discarded sea plastic — reaffirming Prada’s unique ability to make the technical look suave, something no other luxury label of its scale can claim. Do you see any other the other Italian houses dressing astronauts?
Highsnobiety has affiliate marketing partnerships, which means we may receive a commission from your purchase. Want to shop the products our editors actually love? Visit the HS Style Guide for recs on all things fashion, footwear, and beauty.
