Walking the Orbital Runway

Before we go further lets just agree that we are just monkeys who like putting fancy things on our bodies to make other monkeys think we are cool. I’m not saying that as a negative…I have over 20 three-piece suits, and an entire bedroom devoted to my clothes. But we are just the version of monkeys who figured out that we should use our thumbs to button clothes rather than just pick our noses.

We also shouldn’t be so idealistic that we think venturing out into the cosmos won’t involve us taking our sense of fashion (or lack thereof) right along with us. That would be like assuming that one of the first things set up on any new habitat won’t be a distillery…

Space may be ‘hard’ now…but even the Wild West had fashion shows, and plenty of booze. We are going to bring all our desires, vices and luxuries with us to the stars. And if we can’t bring it, we will make it there.

So with that understood. Lets see what Evelyn is up to.

The Fun Part

May 2, 2034
International Space Station, 361km above Earth

Damn, I do look good. Evelyn thought as she stared into the mirror in the rather cramped dressing room she and the 13 other models were using on the refurbished, and now commercialized International Space Station. Although, seriously, who is going to wear anything like this? This is like a cross between a deep sea diver outfit, and something that classic singer…what as her name…oh right, Lady Gaga, would wear.

Doesn’t matter to me what this looks like, I am just here to make it look amazing on me, and figure out how I am going to ‘walk’ this runway. Thank god we have a rehearsal today. I sure hope I don’t actually have to try and maneuver my way around out there.

Also seriously, this micro gravity is not being friendly to my face. I seriously look fat and skinny at the same time. This is weird. Maybe I could have had the half bagel for breakfast and just claimed it was the gravity here messing with how I looked…oh well. Maybe if they ever have another one of these shows I will.

I have no idea how Virginie Viard convinced the penny pinchers at Chanel to stage this show up here. I mean we do have a pretty fucking awesome backdrop, so that has to count for something. I don’t think even Karl Lagerfeld could have upstaged Virginie after she has us on that tether, ‘walking’ with the curve of the Earth as our backdrop.

Wait a minute…I just realized something…I’ll be wearing a helmet out there…why the ‘f’ did I need to make sure I did my makeup first…this is really strange…

The Real Deal

Is it really so implausible that one of the major fashion houses, who already spend in excess of $10 million to stage their annual fashion shows, won’t decide that it would be worth it to shoot some of their models into space to make a splash? And while those fashion houses may be the first people to actually look at making space suits look ‘better’ than they do now. It is only a matter of time before the number of people living in space will create a demand for distinct styles of space suits.

The main image for this post is a design NASA posted to their Twitter account recently. And yes…it does look like a weird crop top…But that aside…NASA is actually looking to revamp their current suits. In part because the suits costs hundreds of millions of dollars. In part because as we saw earlier this year, they don’t actually have enough small enough to fit women. It is also in part because current suits are really really f’ing hard to work in, much less walk in. So if astronauts are going to be waddling their happy asses around the moon, it would be nice for them to actually be able to do something useful.

Next Time

Alrighty space nerds…I’m signing off there. A little shorter than some of my other posts. But I figured I need to mix it up or you will just think I like writing book-length posts :). Next time I’m going to write about one of the first ways to reliably get people to/from Mars or the Moon on a regular basis. Until then, feel free to check out some of my old posts, whether you want to learn about military communications, or why riding a space elevator is going to be a long trip, there are plenty to check out.

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