{"id":628001,"date":"2026-06-08T19:23:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/628001\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T19:23:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:23:22","slug":"prada-unveils-spacewear-for-nasas-artemis-iv-lunar-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/628001\/","title":{"rendered":"Prada Unveils Spacewear for NASA’s Artemis IV Lunar Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPrada<\/a> is shooting for the stars \u2014 or rather, the dark side of the moon.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Sunday morning, Prada<\/a> and Axiom Space invited guests to the brands\u2019 SoHo flagship in Manhattan to show off the latest in the duo\u2019s partnership.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe two unveiled the high-performance Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment, or LCVG, to be worn by astronauts inside the Axiom mobility unit space suit. Pending NASA\u2019s approval in the upcoming weeks, astronauts, more immediately, are set to wear and test the new suits at the International Space Station.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tPrada said the LCVG draws on the brand\u2019s expertise in creating knitting and innovative design concepts, with this next-generation garment crafted by using 3D modeling to help maintain cooling and ventilation as well as enhanced comfort for up to eight-hour spacewalks. With its high-performance materials<\/a>, Prada has identified and sourced fabrics with thermal regulation, comfort, reliability and suitability for continuous wearing of the garment on missions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter going through a series of prototypes, the unveiled LCVG is the latest iteration ready for space. When NASA\u2019s Artemis IV makes its return to the moon \u2014 this time to the South Pole \u2014 next year, the LCGV will be worn by astronauts. On Tuesday, at Houston\u2019s Johnson Space Center, NASA is set to reveal the crew who will be on board for 2027.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Prada<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing the panel, Lorenzo Bertelli<\/a>, chief marketing officer and head of sustainability<\/a> at Prada Group, sat down for an interview with WWD alongside Jonathan Cirtain, chief executive officer and president of Axiom Space, and Russell Ralston, senior vice president of spacecraft development at Axiom Space.<\/p>\n

\n\tBertelli said the decision to launch the suit in New York was a \u201cnice coincidence\u201d that aligned with Prada Mode\u2019s first New York iteration<\/a> and the upcoming 2026 World Cup starting on Thursday. Prada, like many household-name luxury brands<\/a>, is focusing on the U.S.<\/a> with strategic interest.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaybe it was mere coincidence, but the theme for Prada Mode\u2019s installation<\/a> was certainly on brand with the news \u2014 Nicolas Winding Refn and Hideo Kojima were tapped to create an immersive installation inside the Hotel Chelsea, titled \u201cSatellites II,\u201d as a follow up to \u201cSatellites,\u201d which launched in Tokyo last summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tPrada first announced its collaboration with Axiom Space<\/a> in October 2023 and then presented the outer spacesuit in October 2024 at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan<\/a> for the Artemis III lunar mission.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe last time boundaries were really pushed hard in the space industry was the Apollo mission [from 1961 to 1972],\u201d Bertelli told WWD. \u201cThe [missions] changed the world. But we stopped exploring the moon and moved to just orbit around the Earth. We\u2019re now seeing a new age of space exploration that\u2019s [partly] motivated by the current geopolitical environment. We\u2019d like to see if there\u2019s an opportunity and potential for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPrada follows in the footsteps of a long history of fashion\u2019s fascination and affinity for space<\/a>\u00a0 \u2014 Andr\u00e9 Courr\u00e8ges, Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin are just some of the designers who were notable for the crossover during the late 1960s and the Space Age.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Russell<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRussell Ralston, Jonathan Cirtain and Lorenzo Bertelli<\/a> unveil the new Prada spacewear.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Prada<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, this is not the first time Prada has cultivated ties with the tech industry \u2014 Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, sat front row in February in Milan for the Prada fall 2026 show<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tBertelli spoke about his mother, Miuccia Prada<\/a>, and his father, Patrizio Bertelli<\/a>, both innovators in their own right, which has driven the brand\u2019s ethos. This partnership between Prada and Axiom Space shouldn\u2019t come as a complete surprise to its industry peers, Lorenzo Bertelli said, given the brand\u2019s renown for the unconventional.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf my mother could do things without selling bags, she would do it,\u201d Bertelli explained. \u201cIf my father could do the America\u2019s Cup without selling bags, he would do it. The end goal for the Prada brand is never to solve a product but to do something else; it\u2019s a medium. For us, it\u2019s part of the journey of the brand to keep pushing boundaries, exploring the limits and giving the people our perspective. As a family, we simply like to do nice things, get inspired by our capabilities and give our point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCirtain also pointed out that while Prada has been around since 1913 and Axiom Space was only founded a decade ago, the two companies saw more commonalities than they both initially anticipated. One of the major synergies between the two is their focus on \u201cprocess.\u201d The need to explore was also a major parallel \u2014 for Prada, the focus being on culture, arts and fashion and for Axiom Space, the resources of outer space.<\/p>\n

\n\tMoreover, what made Prada an attractive partner for Axiom Space was the brand\u2019s end-to-end vertical integration and operations management of its entire supply chain: from sourcing<\/a> to final product. Moreover, Cirtain repeated the proverb as an overarching philosophy that \u201cif you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Prada<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPrada has developed artisans that [have spent] 30 to 40 years in the company,\u201d Cirtain said. \u201cThey develop extraordinarily high-quality materials<\/a> from the sourcing<\/a> of that material to the delivery of the consumer good \u2014 and that same attribute is required if you\u2019re going to successfully and safely fly humans to outer space. As a start-up, you can\u2019t cut corners [when] flying people to space successfully. There\u2019s no tolerance for fault. We intentionally built our company following a process that was substantiated on the successes of agencies globally and industries globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBertelli, a former racecar driver, also likened the design of the spacesuits to Formula 1<\/a> cars \u2014 \u201cwhen design is driven by functionality, it\u2019s rare that it doesn\u2019t look good. A car that looks nice is usually fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSurprisingly, the tailor-made spacesuits don\u2019t take nearly as much time for Prada to manufacture as its custom-made looks do. Bertelli said that 500 hours usually go into the creation of them, which is \u201ctwo or three times more than the amount of hours required here for the spacesuits.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCirtain half-jokingly mentioned that the competition among all the astronauts to be the first to wear the new Prada suits remains fierce. And Bertelli, who is scuba dive-certified, offered himself up to test the spacesuit by diving into the swimming pool.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe vision of the brand has always been not just being a product brand. Prada has so many facets and expresses itself in so many ways. We\u2019re not a museum, but rather a cultural exploration. We like to push boundaries in whatever we do\u00a0\u2014 from the design point of view, technology and more. We want to give our perspective to the community and people within our ecosystem and our world. It\u2019s another perspective on how we see things. This is part of the really unique DNA of the brand of Prada,\u201d Bertelli concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prada is shooting for the stars \u2014 or rather, the dark side of the moon. On Sunday morning,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[372,212797,2303,74370,212798,32668,90,46962,416,5699,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-628001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-formula-1","tag-lorenzo-bertelli","tag-materials","tag-miuccia-prada","tag-patrizio-bertelli","tag-prada","tag-science","tag-sourcing","tag-space","tag-sustainability","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}