What do you wear for your first trip to space?
If you are like most people, probably some space suit or astronaut outfit, the company (or government agency) offers you. However, if you are Lauren Sánchez Bent journalist, pilot, children’s book author, philanthropist and fiancé from Jeff Bezos-de on the second richest man on the planet, you have a different idea. You think, “Let’s introduce the escape suit again.”
“Usually, you know, these suits were made for a man,” said Mrs. Sánchez recently on a video call on the west coast. “Then they are tailored to a woman.” Or not tailor -made: a completely female space walk, planned in 2019, had to be canceled because NASA did not have two space suits that suit two women. (Instead, they have broadcast a woman and a man.)
But Mrs. Sánchez is part of the first completely female flight since Russia Valentina Tereshkova sent on a solo flight in 1963. She goes on a blue flight with a pop star (Katy Perry), a journalist (Gayle King), two scientist/activists (Amanda Nguyen, Aisha Bowe) and a film producer (Kerianne Flynn). You feel like you feel powerful, she said, and you shouldn’t sacrifice that because the space has been – well, a mostly male space. Even if you are a space tourist, instead of a fully -fledged astronaut.
So five months ago Mrs. Sánchez contacted Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim, the co-founders of the MONSE brand, who are also creative directors of Oscar de la Renta (Mr. Garcia and Mrs. Kim made Mrs. Sánchez’s 2024 with Gala Outfit). She wanted to know if they would work with Blue Origin, the Space Company of Mr. Bezos.
“I had something like: right away!” Garcia said about Zoom.
The result of their collaboration will be unveiled on Monday, when Mrs. Sánchez and Crew climb in the blue origin rocket in West-Texas and leave for their journey of about 11 minutes past the Kármán line and in zero gravity.
“I think the suits are elegant,” said Mrs. Sánchez, “but they also bring a bit of herbs into the room.”
When Gayle King tried hers, she said, she thought it was great. She thought that the suits looked at the same time ‘professional and feminine’.
What, when it came to the room, happened to be “something we had never seen before,” she said.
The Monse Blue Origin Suits, which were produced by Creative Character Engineering, look like a cross between “Star Trek” (on top) and the outfits that Elvis wore in his Vegas years (on the bottom) and are made of a flame-resistant fashion, instead of a glowed polyester-in-the-stalked polyester-in-the-styester-in-the-styester-sized in-sanged in voetten in vinty daunted in vleated investing, in-sanged in vinner, in vinner in vlament, in-poning in voetten investor, in-poning in vinner, in vinner, in vinner in vlammester invested polyester. Vochtzende in 2021. (Ms. design also those suits.)
Still, “we really didn’t know where to start,” said Mr. Garcia. “There is no precedent. All references are the space suits for men.”
Because blue origin flyers do not go into space, Mr Garcia and Mrs. Kim did not have to include the living support system of the classic astronaut, but they still had to work within technical specifications.
“Simplicity was important and comfort and fit,” said Mr. Garcia. “But we also wanted something that was a bit dangerous, such as a motocross outfit. Or a ski suit. Flattering and sexy.”
Mrs. Kim added: “I would personally want to look very slim and in my outfit.”
They hit ideas back and forth with Mrs. Sánchez. “We even had a meeting about which underwear Lauren will wear,” said Mr Garcia.
“Skims!” Mrs. Sánchez responded.
The result is a Body-Con jumpsuit, with a compression layer, a light mandarin collar, a dual-zip front that can look like it is open to the waist, a belt and a zipper on the side of each calf, so that the carrier can create a wide low effect according to their own taste. “You will be able to zippers or unpack,” said Mr Garcia. (Mrs. King said she liked the idea of the Bell bottom.)
The suits also have a darker, ombre effect on the sides that works to shade the body, almost like trompe l’Oil. There are small bags on the arms, but leg bags were put down because they were too large, said Mrs. Kim. Each crew member was three-d Body-Gescand, so that the suits could be done exactly on their measurements.
“I almost put a corset in your suit because I know you wouldn’t have been against it,” Mr. Garcia told Mrs. Sánchez.
“I would probably not have done,” she said. But “we will be zero gravity. So we must be able to move.” When Mrs. Sánchez tried the prototype for the first time, she said: “I stretched out. I did a back bend. I had something like that:” Ok, let’s make sure that it doesn’t split up the back in the room. “
Mr Garcia said that when he saw the suit, he thought, “Damn, you look good. You go up in the space that looks hot.”
Amanda Nguyen called the suits ‘revolutionary’. Clothing is about identity and representation, she said, and by allowing women to seem like women, the suits are an explanation that “women belong in space.”
Blue Origin is not the first private space company that registers a fashion brand for help designing outfit. Axiom space has also worked with Prada on their extravehicular mobility unit spaces, also known as the suit that NASA’s astronauts will wear on the Moon during the Artemis III mission in 2026 (prototypes were unveiled last October). Even so, Elon Musk collaborated with the costume designer Jose Fernandez, the man behind the ‘Passen of’ The Fantastic Four ‘and’ The Avengers’ on the SpaceX suits.
Why fashion designers were suddenly so popular with the astrophysical set, Mr. Garcia said: “If we pack it to look approachable and something that someone could wear, then the space can feel a little less distant.” Maybe, Mr Garcia said, when people saw the style of the Mons Blue Origin, they might even think that “they want to buy that space suit to go to the gym.”
In fact, he continued, he and Mrs. Kim thought that they would “set up an office on Mars.” In both cases he joked. Kind of.
It turned out that Mr. Garcia, Mrs. Kim and Mrs. Sánchez were already working on something else for blue origin, related to ‘the moon’. Blue origin has been selected by NASA to develop the human landing system for the Artemis v Mission to the MoonBut Mrs. Sánchez would not say whether MON would have something to do with that.
However, she was excited to give space travel a new look.
“This is not what you would call ‘normal’, but neither is sending six women into space,” she said. “If you want to do Glamor, great; if you don’t, great.” The point was that everyone would choose.
Then she quoted something that she told Katy Perry told her: “We put the ‘donkey’ in astronaut,” she said.
