Prada Ventures into Space: Develops Inner Ventilation Garment for NASA Astronauts

(Central News Agency, New York, 7th — Combined Foreign Reports) Italian fashion house Prada today unveiled an inner garment for NASA astronauts, highlighting its aggressive push into the space industry and its ambition to become the first major luxury brand to successfully enter this sector.

According to Reuters, this form-fitting inner garment was co-developed by Prada and Axiom Space, a private space infrastructure developer based in Houston, Texas. Its key feature is ventilation tubing woven into the fabric.

"We have a very broad range of capabilities and expertise," said Prada's Marketing Director, Lorenzo Bertelli, at an event held at the brand's flagship store in Manhattan, New York, standing next to a mannequin displaying the new "Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment."

Axiom Space CEO Jonathan Cirtain also noted that the expertise required for developing space exploration products "can often draw inspiration from many seemingly unrelated industries."

Prada made a major foray into the spacesuit field in 2024, unveiling a suit intended for the Artemis 3 orbital mission in 2027 and the Artemis 4 lunar landing plan in 2028.

Luxury brands have long drawn design inspiration from space travel. Thomai Serdari, a marketing professor and luxury brand strategist at New York University's Stern School of Business, stated that with the space exploration and tourism industries booming, Prada has "moved from the realm of inspiration to a genuine partnership."

Reports indicate that companies from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to Elon Musk's SpaceX are actively developing the space tourism market targeting the wealthy.

Luca Solca, Head of Global Luxury Goods at Bernstein Research, pointed out that restarting space exploration and returning humans to the moon "will inevitably attract attention from all sectors," and luxury brands must maintain their relevance and market visibility.

Beyond Prada, other apparel companies are also riding the space wave. US sportswear brand Under Armour has collaborated with space tourism company Virgin Galactic on spacesuits, while Columbia Sportswear has partnered with startup Intuitive Machines to research space textile technology.

However, it remains unclear whether other luxury giants will follow Prada's lead.

Serdari said that Louis Vuitton, Hermes, and Chanel are all interested in the space travel sector but are likely to seek different ways to enter the market.

"You will never see the top brands in the luxury industry imitating each other," she added. (Translated by Liu Wenyu) 1150608