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Japanese Astronaut Gets Designer "Space Suit"

Naoko Yamazaki knows you have to look good at work even if your work is in outer space. Japanese fashion designer Tae Ashida has created a designer suit for the female astronaut to wear during her stay on the International Space Station. "As a female designer, I chose a design and colour with a sense of grace ... so that she can feel at ease as she carries out a tough mission in a male-dominated, bleak atmosphere. It's like a dream come true to see my clothes worn in space," said Ashida. "I'm looking forward to seeing her wear my design."

14 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Misleading title by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Space suit refers to the equipment needed to operate in vacuum.

    This is just a set of "work clothes" for one particular astronaut.

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  2. Re:Skills by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Might be a good designer, but definitely isn't a good artist. Either that or she thought the astronaut's legs were the same length as the rest of her body.

    I have yet to see any fashion design sketches that were anatomically correct in their proportions. I gather that such sketches are meant to be impressionistic rather than realistic.

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  3. Because an ugly female-astronaut can't perform by Superdarion · · Score: 3, Insightful
    So, a woman manages to overcome all the dificulties it represents to move in a male-dominated environment, doing what few women have done in the past, struggling not only to accomplish her main mission in space but also to destroy those obsolete, yet still in place, ideas that certain areas belong to men only, and here comes some idiotic designer saying "a girl has to be pretty"?!

    so that she can feel at ease as she carries out a tough mission

    Fuck Tae!

    1. Re:Because an ugly female-astronaut can't perform by coaxial · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So, a woman manages to overcome all the dificulties it represents to move in a male-dominated environment, doing what few women have done in the past, struggling not only to accomplish her main mission in space but also to destroy those obsolete, yet still in place, ideas that certain areas belong to men only, and here comes some idiotic designer saying "a girl has to be pretty"?!

      Most women can do both. Just because they can do anything a man can do, doesn't mean they can't be feminine.
      To imply that femininity necessitates lesser performance is down right sexist.

  4. slow news day? by ckaminski · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My god, the summary leads you to believe they actually made a designer "space-suit", you know, for EVAs. At least that's what it led *me* to believe.

    This is GAP for the Japanese Space Agency. Boo!

    Man, legs like those could wrap around you twice!

    Must be a slow news day.

  5. Ye gods, those legs by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Maybe next time she can design a spacesuit for a human. It's been a long time since the fashion industry designed anything for actual human beings.

  6. 'Designer' Stuff is a Scam by MacGyver2210 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think 'designer' clothing is a scam in any form or market. Paying more for something because a certain person's name is on it is the height of shallow stupidity. Extending this to a market where safety and reliability are the only real concerns, and adding fashion concerns over function, is simply irresponsible. If any of these suits are actually produced and used, it will be abundantly clear why the space program on this planet as a whole is failing.

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  7. Re:But why? by pavon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Except the clothing is intended to be worn on people, so how can you judge if it will actually look good if you design it for aliens? It's like car designers intentionally doing all their drawings such that only 3' midgets can use the car or furniture designers intentionally drawing things out of proportion to the human form. The purpose of sketches is to develop and test ideas before a prototype is made, but if you have to completely rework the proportions between sketching and prototyping then the sketch is worthless for the purpose of judging the aesthetic appeal of the design. It is like the entire fashion industry is in denial about what medium they working in.

  8. Re:But why? by amicusNYCL · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I bet it's just marketing. A designer could probably show a woman a picture like this, and have the woman's reaction be "I want to look like that!" It's not physically possible to look like that, but a long, slender form is viewed as more graceful than a short stumpy guy, so it's probably just marketing. They're trying to sell the fantasy instead of the reality.

    Now that I think about it, there's got to be a connection between this and anorexic models. The models are probably under pressure to look like the drawings (vacant stares and everything).

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  9. Re:But why? by sznupi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, assuming the fashion world is a self-adoration circle (I have yet to see something which would make that impression certainly false), making the designs look better than they really are does serve a purpose...

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  10. Re:But why? by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If they were concerned what it looked like on people, they would have average people as the medium, not 6 foot, 90 lb caricatures of women shaking their hips down a runway.

    These are artists, not engineers. Logic and accuracy need not apply.

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  11. Re:But why? by painandgreed · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The models are under pressure not to detract from the clothes. For fashion photography, the models are pretty much simply living hangers. The are there to make the clothes look good, not the other way around. If you want to women that look good, you would be in glamour photography. I doubt you'd find too many anorexic glamour models, but that is because the subject of the photo is the women, not the clothing. Sure, they could shoot fashion photography like they shoot glamor, but then the focus would be on the women and not the clothing, the thing that they are trying to sell. When complaining about fashion models, you are simply confusing the frame for the picture.

  12. Standing out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Standing out is a great way to fit in.

    Make sure that everyone around knows that you are different and must be treated differently.

  13. Ignorance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "As a female designer, I chose a design and colour with a sense of grace ... so that she can feel at ease as she carries out a tough mission in a male-dominated, bleak atmosphere," Way to make this more sexist than it needs to be, she should be wearing the same suits as everyone else. In an ideal society we should be able to walk around naked in public, where old fashioned thinking and sexual predisposition such as this is what is preventing such a social advancement, naked bodies are only seen as sex objects because we cover them with clothes, we can't just start walking around naked because both the public and our governments see them as sex objects and such actions are considered undecent exposure.