The Italian fashion house Prada has unveiled an inner-layer suit that is set to be used by NASA astronauts in future missions to the Moon; an initiative that shows the brand is striving to become the first major player in the luxury world to seriously enter the space industry.

This fitted suit, designed in collaboration with Axiom Space (a space infrastructure developer in Houston), features ventilation tubes woven into the fabric.

Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada's Chief Marketing Officer, said at an event in the brand's store in Manhattan, alongside a mannequin wearing the new 'cooling and liquid ventilation' suit, 'We have a very wide range of capabilities and technical knowledge.'

According to Jonathan Sertin, CEO of Axiom Space, the expertise required to develop products related to space exploration can be derived from 'many seemingly unrelated industries.'

This new product was introduced following Prada's entry into the space fashion sector in 2024, when the brand unveiled an astronaut suit intended for use in NASA's Artemis 4 mission in 2028.

Luxury brands have long drawn inspiration from space travel, but according to Tomi Sardari, a luxury brand strategist and marketing professor at New York University, Prada has now 'gone beyond inspiration and entered into a real collaboration'; coinciding with the growth of the tourism and space exploration industry.

Sardari presents two main reasons for Prada's interest in this field: access to wealthy customers who are considering space travel, and alignment with innovative and forward-thinking ideas. Companies like Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, and SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, have also focused on space tourism for wealthy individuals.

According to Luca Solka, global head of luxury goods at Bernstein, the resumption of space exploration and human travel to the Moon will attract significant attention. He states that luxury brands must be present in this space to maintain their appeal and visibility.

Source: ARN news