Spacesuits have always been an integral part of any scientific space mission. Astronauts rely on their suits to keep them safe while working inside or outside space crafts, ones that are designed differently for the distinct conditions presented by the environments. They are personal life supports that protect crewmembers from solar radiation, depressurization, and drastic temperature shifts and ensure that their wearers have enough oxygen to survive. From Project Mercury’s shiny suit to the Space Shuttle pumpkin suit to Nasa and SpaceX’s Starman suits, the evolution of spacewear has seen drastic changes in colors, shapes, and manufacturing technologies.

However, with the advancement of technology, space is starting to see more people braving its allure. Albeit limited to wealthier individuals, commercial space travel is just around the corner. Companies like SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are investing many resources to make space tourism a reality. After NASA certified SpaceX’s Crew Dragon as “the first commercial spacecraft system in history capable of transporting humans to and from the International Space Station” in early November 2020, and the Crew Dragon Crew-1 capsule flew its first operational crewed flight later the month, it was time for Virgin Galactic to steal the spotlight for a moment. SpaceX unveiled its spacesuit line in 2017, so it was about time the competition revealed its full line of astronaut spacewear.

Virgin Galactic is a “commercial spaceline and vertically integrated aerospace” company from Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin conglomerate of brands that include airline Virgin Atlantic, hotel chain Virgin Hotels, magnetic vactrain brand Virgin Hyperloop, and many more. Galactic’s purpose is to inspire future generations and make it possible for people to see Earth from a new perspective, based on a profoundly human need to explore the universe, innovate, and create a better future.

Virgin Galactic believes in the idea that looking at Earth’s issues from an outside position blurs the boundaries that divide people. As their vision, in creating a stable and comfortable infrastructure for more people to experience the near cosmos, scientists can learn more about the universe and how humans can survive outside Earth, entrepreneurs can model and profit from a new business sector, and citizens can let their imaginations go wild. As the WhiteKnightTwo air launches the SpaceShipTwo (the world’s first 8-passenger spaceship carrier to be built) above 55,000 ft into the planet’s low-orbit, Virgin Galactic expects to be at the forefront of humanity’s mission in the cosmos.

Still, what is a galactic brand without its spacewear? Virgin Galactic had to develop their own fashion style, so they partnered with Under Armour back in 2019 to create a fashion-forward line of base layers, footwear, training suits, and astronaut jackets for the astronaut customers, which was launched at the end of that year. Recently, they unveiled their spacesuit design, which was worn by pilots on Virgin’s first human space flight on December 11th, 2020. In the company’s press release, Randall Howard, Under Armour’s SVP of Material and Manufacturing Innovation, explained that “Our goal was to build a suit that leaves a pilot–like any athlete–feeling confident and with zero distractions during a critical moment of performance,” prioritizing comfort, support, movement, and temperature management over protective pressurized bulkiness.

The 1kg lightweight thermo-regulating jacquard-like spacesuit consists of flight-grade knitted royal-blue fabrics, accessorized by the golden Virgin Galactic pilot wings emblem—a symbol of elegance, speed, and dynamism—and is tailored to each pilot, with name and metrics specific to them. Furthermore, to further differentiate pilots from customers, as both wear the same royal-blue fabrics to delineate that everyone is part of the same crew, the former features black stripes below the arms, surrounding the calves, and around the body’s vertical edges to represent “the black sky of space,” the pilot’s final destination. And the suit also has shoulder cushions that alleviate the annoyance created by seat straps during zero-g, take-off, and boost to provide further comfort.

With Under Armour’s collaboration, Virgin Galactic’s fashion direction has proved to pull from more creative and stylistic inspirations, playing with blue-golden color contrasts and detailed embroidery to create a visual identity that is urban, timely, and appealing to customers compared to SpaceX’s more sci-fi, squared, B&W, minimalistic look. If the future of space fashion resides on both companies’ designs, Virgin Galactic’s advantage comes from their spacewear’s ability to provide both a familiar yet new style that relies on being grounded and in the practicality of movement and comfort to engage the wearer with space instead of locking them in place. It is plausible that companies like Virgin Galactic are defining the aesthetic of the near future, so if everything goes as planned and commercial space travel becomes a profitable market, we are experiencing the sowing of a new era of fashion.

If you want to read more about Virgin Galactic’s Spacesuit, check out this article.

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This would not have flown at my school. Image via — This would *not* have flown at my school. Image via

For most of my academic career prior to starting college, I had to wear a uniform for school. Not only did I have to wear a uniform, there was also a long list of boundaries that dictated the rest of our dress code, from our hair, to our nails, to what kind of accessories or jewelry we could wear. Now, I don’t consider myself anti-uniform, since I can see the benefits of wearing one so children aren’t taught to try and keep up with the Joneses at a young age with what they wear to school, but I’m certainly not pro-uniform, at least in the way my schools had approached them.

For me, their approach, as dramatic and angsty teenager as this may sound, aimed to strip away all individuality from its students and forced them to conform to a set ideal. Even though there were choices of a white shirt or a blue shirt, or pants or a skirt, you were still strictly relegated to a certain norm. Jewelry could not be any colors that were deemed “too distracting", whatever that was supposed to mean, hair could only be styled a certain way that was “natural” and also “not crazy”, once again, whatever that was supposed to mean, and nails from middle school below could not be painted of course, since that would be “too distracting”; the students eventually got to paint our nails but only if it was a plain French manicure, since that was not distracting or too creative, I guess.

I was a bit of a rebel, though in a quiet way. Of course I would wear nail polish, but only light sheer pinks and nudes so I wouldn’t get caught, but I’d know that I was breaking the rules that I found to be, quite frankly, ridiculous. I would see how “crazy” I could get away with doing my hair for school, especially when I was going through a Star Wars phase and did my hair like Padmé or Princess Leia every day, but once again, this was more of an act of quiet rebellion. I saw it as I had beat the system- I didn’t get caught and I had the satisfaction of bending the rules the way I wanted.

So, as you can imagine, I had big plans of going ham when I finally didn’t have to wear a uniform for school anymore and could dress however I wanted. In high school, when I could finally wear nail polish, I always had my nails long, with bold colors and designs and different shapes, since I refused to be put back into that box of conformity again. When I got to college, I imagined myself wearing whatever I wanted, and I would feel great, and everyone else would be doing the same and it would just be some sort of nonconformist fashion utopia.

This was not really the case for me, however. I had gotten so used to just wearing what everyone else was wearing, never thinking about what I wanted to wear, and the looks you would get from everyone when you broke the dress code, that I found myself in a bit of a situation. I wore only muted colors, or neutrals, or black and gray, not wanting to draw too much attention to myself, and I tried to follow what other people were wearing - I would wear another kind of uniform , just self-imposed this time. I found myself torn between things I wanted to wear. One one hand, I saw cute dresses and matching skirt sets and bold coats, and on the other, I was looking at what I was already wearing, a plain sweater with jeans and sneakers and a plain jacket. That is not to say I didn’t like what I was wearing - anyone who knows me knows I still love wearing black and neutral colors - but it wasn’t really what I was dying to wear or I suppose the outfits I fantasized about wearing.

It wasn’t until recently that I started to fully settle into what I really wanted to wear; this is thanks to the people I’ve met who wear what they want and don’t care if they stand out, or if they aren’t wearing what the trends are. And you know what? Other people didn’t really care either; the looks these people would get weren’t those of “oh look at them, they broke the dress code”, but that of “wow those sparkly boots are super cool”. I still have days where I slip back into the comfort of what’s trendy and what everyone else is wearing, since I’m only human, but I’m no longer as afraid to branch out and wear those dresses that were just hanging in my closet, unworn. Who knows, maybe I’ll even bring back the Star Wars hair one day.

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