Lifestyle
How Lauren Sanchez Helped Design Blue Origin’s Flight Suits
What do you wear for your first trip to space?
If you are like most people, probably whatever spacesuit or astronaut outfit the company (or government agency) you are flying with provides. However, if you are Lauren Sánchez — journalist, pilot, children’s book author, philanthropist and fiancée of Jeff Bezos, the second-richest man on the planet — you have another idea. You think, “Let’s reimagine the flight suit.”
“Usually, you know, these suits are made for a man,” Ms. Sánchez said recently on a video call from the West Coast. “Then they get tailored to fit a woman.” Or not tailored: an all-female spacewalk, planned in 2019, had to be canceled because NASA did not have two spacesuits that fit two women. (Instead they sent out one woman and one man.)
But Ms. Sánchez is part of the first all-female flight since Russia sent Valentina Tereshkova on a solo flight in 1963. She will be going up on a Blue Origin flight with a pop star (Katy Perry), a journalist (Gayle King), two scientist/activists (Amanda Nguyen, Aisha Bowe) and a film producer (Kerianne Flynn). Feeling like yourself is what makes you feel powerful, she said, and you shouldn’t have to sacrifice that because space has been — well, a mostly male space. Even if you are a space tourist, rather than a full-fledged astronaut.
So five months ago, Ms. Sánchez got in touch with Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim, the co-founders of the brand Monse, who are also creative directors of Oscar de la Renta (Mr. Garcia and Ms. Kim made Ms Sánchez’s 2024 Met Gala outfit). She wanted to know if they would work with Blue Origin, Mr. Bezos’ space company.
“I was like: right away!” Mr. Garcia said over Zoom.
The result of their collaboration will be unveiled on Monday, when Ms. Sánchez and crew climb into the Blue Origin rocket in West Texas, and take off for their approximately 11-minute trip past the Kármán line and into zero gravity.
“I think the suits are elegant,” Ms. Sánchez said, “but they also bring a little spice to space.”
When Gayle King tried hers on, she said, she loved it. She thought the suits looked “professional and feminine at the same time.”
Which, when it came to space, happened to be “something we had never seen before,” she said.
The Monse Blue Origin suits, which were produced by Creative Character Engineering, look like a cross between “Star Trek” (on top) and the outfits Elvis wore in his Vegas years (on the bottom) and are made of a flame-resistant stretch neoprene, rather than the shiny polyester-looking fabric of the original, baggier, Blue Origin suits, as modeled by Mr. Bezos on a flight in 2021. (Ms. Sánchez helped design those suits as well.)
Still, “We really didn’t know where to start,” Mr. Garcia said. “There’s no precedent. All the references are men’s spacesuits.”
Because Blue Origin fliers do not go out into space, Mr. Garcia and Ms. Kim did not need to incorporate the life-support system of the classic astronaut suit, but they still had to work within technical specifications.
“Simplicity was important, and comfort, and fit,” Mr. Garcia said. “But we also wanted something that was a little dangerous, like a motocross outfit. Or a ski suit. Flattering and sexy.”
Ms. Kim added: “I, personally, would want to look very slim and fitted in my outfit.”
They batted ideas back and forth with Ms. Sánchez. “We even had a meeting on what underwear Lauren is going to wear,” Mr. Garcia said.
“Skims!” Ms. Sánchez responded.
The result is a body-con jumpsuit, with a compression layer, a slight mandarin collar, a dual-zip front that can look like it is open to the waist, a belt, and a zipper on the side of each calf, so the wearer can create a flared effect according to their own taste. “You’ll be able to zip or unzip,” Mr. Garcia said. (Ms. King said she liked the bell-bottom idea.)
The suits also feature a darker, ombre effect on the sides that works to shade the body, almost like trompe l’oeil. There are small pockets on the arms, but leg pockets were dropped because they were too bulky, Ms. Kim said. Every crew member was three-D body-scanned so the suits could be made exactly to their measurements.
“I almost put a corset in your suit, because I know you wouldn’t have been against it,” Mr. Garcia said to Ms. Sánchez.
“I probably wouldn’t have,” she said. But “we’re going to be in zero gravity. So we have to be able to move.” When Ms. Sánchez first tried the prototype on, she said, “I was stretching. I was doing a back bend. I was like, ‘OK, let’s make sure it doesn’t split up the back in space.’”
Mr. Garcia said when he saw the suit on he thought, “Damn, you look good. You’re going up in space looking hot.”
Amanda Nguyen called the suits “revolutionary.” Clothes are about identity and representation, she said, and by allowing women to look like women, the suits are a statement that “women belong in space.”
Blue Origin is not the first private space company to enlist a fashion brand for help in outfit design. Axiom Space has also been working with Prada on their Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit, otherwise known as the suit that NASA’s astronauts will wear when they walk on the moon during the Artemis III mission in 2026 (prototypes were revealed last October). Similarly, Elon Musk worked with the costume designer Jose Fernandez, the man behind the ‘fits of “The Fantastic Four” and “The Avengers,” on the SpaceX suits.
As to why fashion designers were suddenly so popular with the astrophysics set, Mr. Garcia said, “if we make suits look approachable and like something anyone could wear, then space might feel a little bit less distant.” Maybe, Mr. Garcia said, when people saw the Monse Blue Origin style, they might even think they “want to buy that spacesuit to go to the gym.”
In fact, he went on, he and Ms. Kim were thinking they might “set up an office on Mars.” In both cases, he was joking. Sort of.
It turned out Mr. Garcia, Ms. Kim and Ms. Sánchez were already working on something else for Blue Origin, related to “the moon.” Blue Origin has been selected by NASA to develop the human landing system for the Artemis V mission to the Moon, but Ms. Sánchez would not say if Monse would have anything to do with that.
She was, however, excited to give space travel a new look.
“This isn’t what you would call ‘normal,’ but neither is sending six women into space,” she said. “If you want to do glam, great; if you don’t, great.” The point was everyone gets to choose.
Then she quoted something she said Katy Perry had told her: “We’re putting the ‘ass’ in astronaut,” she said.
Cynthia Erivo attends LACMA Art+Film Gala at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Nov. 1, 2025.
Lisa O’Connor/AFP via Getty Images
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Lisa O’Connor/AFP via Getty Images
There’s a moment in the new movie, Wicked: For Good, when Elphaba, the so-called Wicked Witch, stops defending herself to a world that has misunderstood her and embraces her own power. Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba, sees a connection between her character’s trajectory and her own.
“There were so many sort of real parallels — the relationship with her father, the relationship to being in spaces that don’t really include you,” Erivo says. “The feelings you see in the movie are very real feelings.”
Erivo grew up in London as the child of Nigerian immigrants. From an early age, it was evident that she had a powerful singing voice. She attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but felt like an outsider.
“It was a tough experience to be there. I just didn’t think I fit,” she says. “And I think there was sort of a lack of wanting to understand where I was coming from or who I was as a person.”
Erivo first broke through on Broadway in The Color Purple, winning a Tony Award for her portrayal of Celie. She went on to earn an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Harriet Tubman, and later played Aretha Franklin in Genius Aretha.
In Wicked: For Good, Erivo reprises her role as Elphaba, alongside Ariana Grande as Glinda, in this final chapter of the Wicked story. Both Wicked movies were filmed at the same time, which proved challenging at times.
“There were days where, luckily, you would sort of know where the character was at this point [in the story],” Erivo says. “But there were some times where you’re sort of guessing really, because you hadn’t shot a certain scene, you’re just sort of assuming that the scene is gonna feel this way.”
Erivo also has a new memoir, Simply More: A Book for Anyone who Has Been Told They’re Too Much, which details her childhood in South London and her path to the stage.
Erivo reprises her role of Elphaba in Wicked: For Good.
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Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
Interview highlights
On her physical training for Wicked
I’d [swim] laps, then sing and then I’d run. … It’s the idea that if I’m doing something that’s strenuous and I can sing it whilst I’m doing the thing that’s strenuous, when I’m standing still, it’ll just be there. I won’t actually have to work that hard for it to be there. … Once your body has it in it, it just sort of lives with you. And so that’s what I wanted for myself.
On getting into character through perfume
I started doing this years and years ago. The first time I did it, I think I did with Harriet [Tubman] and hers was, like, cedarwood and lavender, I think it was, but like essence with a base oil, not a perfume, because I wanted it to feel like something she could find, that she could discover, make, as opposed to something you could just buy in a store and spray on oneself. Because of the time, because of who she was, I wanted it to feel like it was of the Earth. And then I realized how powerful it was for me. And so I kept doing it with my characters. …
So Elphaba, who’s younger, I sort of messed around with big florals, like really deep florals. So tuberose, rose, lilies and then I mixed it with a tobacco oud. It was a scent called Witchy Woo. When I found it, I thought, there’s no way this is going to work. It will be way too on the nose. … I was staying at a Soho Farmhouse in the UK and they have this little sort of gift shop and in the back they have a few perfumes … I sprayed some on my hand and immediately I wasn’t convinced, but you know how perfume changes? … My body is like, no, this is a really good scent. There was a reason it was there for you, go back for it.
On her decision to cut, and then shave, her hair
It started a long time ago, just as I was coming out of drama school. I just knew that I wanted something different. Around that time, everyone who was auditioning, girls who were auditioning wanted long hair and a particular kind of aesthetic, and I sort of repelled against the idea because I didn’t want any distractions. I don’t know what gave me the idea, what gave [me] the wherewithal to think, I want to lessen the distraction. I want them to just see my face. I want, when I walk in, for them to see a canvas that can transform. A vessel. That what you see is really me, and I can change into the character in front of your very eyes.
After I left drama school, I cut my hair. I went to get a haircut and the hairdresser was very, very scared to cut it, because my hair was quite long. It came down past my shoulders. … If you’re African, often you cut your hair if you lose someone. So there’s an understanding of loss. You know that the old adage when a woman cuts her hair or changes her hairstyle, a life shift has happened. That is very true of the Nigerian tradition. And so, for me, I felt like I went for my own life shift. … It was sort of leaving [drama school] behind and taking from it what I needed and letting go of whatever else I didn’t. And when I cut my hair, I felt strangely like myself. I’ve felt like I’ve been steadily moving towards cutting it off completely, and Wicked was the moment when I took it off completely.
On regretting a time she sang backstage, allowing another actor to lip-sync to her voice
It’s one of those moments that I’ve started to learn to forgive myself for because … previously I’ve felt so mad at myself. So I guess there’s a part of me that’s a little bit ashamed that I would sort of give up my voice in that way. But it’s also why I’m vehemently protective of the way I use my voice. I do not say yes to everything at all. It has to mean something for me to sing, and it has to make sense. I will never give my voice to someone like that again, because it felt like someone removing a gift that was meant for me and giving it to someone else. It just felt, in the moment, really awful, and I remember feeling really wrong. It felt wrong.
On not growing up with her father, and not having a relationship with him as an adult
I think I’m in a real place of acceptance, and a strange apathy as well. I don’t wish him harm, but it’s not like I’m waiting for some grand resolution. I’m sort of OK with it being exactly what it is. I have no desire to start a relationship. I have no desire to mend a relationship. But it doesn’t really occupy my thoughts.
If the point of doing the things you love or the point of doing a thing that you’re good at is to make someone care about you, is to prove that you are meant to be loved, is to prove that you are worthy of being loved, it doesn’t sustain. Because really and truly, the most important love is that of yourself. It has to come from you first.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
John Beam Death
Man Charged With Murder
… Allegedly Confessed
Published
A 27-year-old man has been charged with murder in the death of “Last Chance U” star John Beam … officials announced Monday.
According to court docs, Cedric Irving Jr. admitted to shooting Beam at Laney College in Oakland on Thursday … and had the handgun used in the disgusting act in his possession at the time of his arrest at the San Leandro BART station at 3 AM the next morning.
Beam was shot in the head and rushed to a nearby hospital … but tragically, he died from the injuries he sustained.
At a press conference, Alameda County DA Ursula Jones Dickson said Irving is facing 50 years to life if convicted.
Jones Dickson added Irving — who is being held without bail — did not have a criminal record.
It’s unclear if there is a connection to Irving and Beam … but officials said last week the alleged shooter went to the Laney campus for a “specific reason” and the attack was “very targeted.”
Beam was a staple in the Bay Area … and dedicated his life to helping the youth through sports.
He coached a handful of players who went on to suit up in the NFL.
Frozen turkeys are displayed for sale inside a grocery store on Nov. 14, 2022 in New York City.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Americans will likely face higher prices on items for their Thanksgiving dinners this year.
Turkey, typically the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal, will be one of the biggest sticker shocks for consumers. Wholesale prices for a turkey have jumped 40% from a year ago, according to the Department of Agriculture. Outbreaks of avian influenza, or bird flu, and increased demand have contributed to these higher prices.
Those opting for beef instead of turkey should also prepare to pay more. Beef prices are nearly 15% higher than they were last year, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Canned vegetables are 5% more expensive compared to last year, due to higher packaging costs from the steel and aluminum tariffs the Trump administration put in place earlier this year.
President Trump announced Friday that he would be rolling back tariffs he imposed on beef, coffee, tropical fruits and other commodities, in an effort to combat high prices at grocery stores.
David Ortega, a professor and food economist at Michigan State University, said those rollbacks won’t lower prices completely, as tariffs aren’t the only cause of increasing prices.
“By removing the tariffs, what we’re doing is we’re slowing down the increase in the price of many of these goods,” Ortega said. “So while we may not see prices go down for the holidays, it helps in terms of moderating the price increases that we’ve been accustomed to at the grocery store.”
Some grocery items have seen some price decreases in time for the holiday season. Egg prices have seen a decline from earlier this year, and domestic wine prices are down about 1.2% from last year due to a steady supply and softening demand.
Ortega says buying fresh produce rather than canned fruits or vegetables is one way consumers can avoid higher prices from aluminum packaging. He also recommends shoppers plan their meals out in advance, look for private label or store brands over name brands, and shop early for certain items to take advantage of sales or promotions grocery stores might have.
“It really pays off to plan ahead and create a shopping list, making sure you’re sticking to it and avoiding impulse purchases,” Ortega said.
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