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.

Lifestyle
Jonathan Groff loves criticism … up to a point

A note from Wild Card host Rachel Martin: When I was growing up my parents talked a lot about purpose. They wanted my siblings and me to find careers that were satisfying but really they wanted us to find our purpose — the thing we were put in the world to do. And that’s the idea that came into my head when I was thinking about how to introduce Jonathan Groff. Because yes, he’s a mega talent with a long list of Broadway credits including “Spring Awakening” and “Hamilton.” He won a Tony award for his role in “Merrily We Roll Along” and now he’s nominated for another Tony for his new musical about singer Bobby Darin called “Just in Time.”
But when I watch Jonathan Groff perform it’s more than just watching a person do what they love – it’s watching a person live out their purpose. It’s like he couldn’t do anything else if he tried. And watching him on stage, doing his very special thing, is just a complete joy.
Lifestyle
Pennsylvania kindergarten student handed out jello shots to classmates, district says

An investigation is underway after a Pennsylvania school district said a kindergarten student gave jello shots to classmates.
The Greater Johnstown School District said a kindergarten student at the elementary school gave out “alcohol in the form of small jello cups” to three other students.
The superintendent said once staff learned about the situation, “immediate action was taken.” The students were taken to the nurse’s office for evaluation, and out of an abundance of caution, EMS was called to take the kids to a local hospital. Parents were notified and met first responders at the hospital, the district said.
It’s unclear how the student got the alcoholic jello cups, but the district said it’s looking into it and cooperating with authorities.
“We are currently in possession of the jello cups and the matter is under investigation,” the district said in a release. “We are cooperating fully with local authorities to determine how the student came into possession of these items and to ensure the continued safety of our students and staff.”
The superintendent said the district is committed to transparency, though it’s limited in what it can share because of student privacy laws. The district called it an “isolated incident.”
“We want to assure our families that the health and well-being of our students is our top priority. Counselors and support staff will be available for any students who may need assistance processing today’s events,” the district said.
The school thanked staff, administration, school nurses and school police officers for their “swift response” to the situation.
Lifestyle
No Naked Dressing at Cannes Film Festival? How Will Stars Make News?

The Cannes Film Festival is getting more covered-up — and just in time for the opening ceremony honoring the octogenarian Robert De Niro. Bella Hadid, newly blonde, is already in town, and stars expected include Halle Berry, Scarlett Johansson and Emma Stone. But anyone expecting one of the most reliable moves on the red carpet might be disappointed. The new dress code for gala screenings includes the admonition, “for decency reasons, nudity is prohibited on the red carpet, as well as in any other area of the festival.”
Cue a crisis in the fashion-film industrial complex.
After all, nowhere has the naked dress been more of a presence than at Cannes, where the combination of Mediterranean, sun and a certain Gallic disdain for prudishness (or at least perceived disdain for prudishness) have conspired to create its own tradition of sartorial liberation.
And “nudity,” when it comes to celebrity dressing, is a relative term. The idea that it may no longer be a shortcut to the spotlight is even more shocking than the clothing it may be proscribing.
“Naked dressing,” or that mode of dress in which large swaths of the normally private body are aired for public viewing, has been a tent pole of the publicity machine since long before Marilyn Monroe cooed “Happy birthday, Mr. President” into a microphone in a flesh-colored sheath so tight it left little to the imagination.
In recent years it has become practically a category unto itself, especially at events like the Met Gala. That’s where Beyoncé played Venus on the half shell in 2015 in sheer Givenchy with strategically placed floral embroidery. Where, in 2024, Rita Ora wore a nude Marni bodysuit covered in what looked like strings, and Kylie Minogue modeled a Diesel dress with a naked torso superimposed on her actual torso. It has been framed as a post-Covid libidinal celebration and a post-#MeToo reclamation of the body. Either way, it is pretty much always a talking point.
All the way back in 1985, Ilona Staller, or La Cicciolina, the porn star, politician and former wife of Jeff Koons, walked the Cannes red carpet in a white satin … well, what would you call it? An evening version of Rudi Gernreich’s monokini, with breast-baring straps and a long white satin skirt. Madonna dropped her opera cape to reveal her Jean Paul Gaultier bullet bra and undies on the carpet in 1991, and in 2002 Cameron Diaz wore a sheer beaded gown and panties, starting a peekaboo trend that is still going strong.
Indeed, the dress as scrim, a transparent piece of nothing draped over bare skin or lingerie to suggest clothing without actually covering much of anything, is perhaps the most popular current form of naked dressing. It is more omnipresent than, say, the skirt slit up to here and the top cut down to there that has also been modeled by many on the red carpet. It provides the illusion of clothes while also teasing what is underneath.
It’s unclear from the wording of the Cannes dress code if the new policy applies only to literal nudity or to clothing that exposes body parts that might reasonably be termed “indecent.” According to Agnès Leroy, the head of press for the festival, the new rules were established to codify certain practices that have been long in effect. The aim, she said, “is not to regulate attire per se, but to prohibit full nudity — meaning the absence of clothing — on the red carpet, in accordance with the institutional framework of the event and French law.” (Even if French law allows toplessness on some beaches, a reality that may add to the confusion around the Cannes rules.)
Still, that leaves the dictum somewhat open to interpretation, given the general absence of fabric in many evening looks. One person’s vulgarity can be another person’s celebration, and who is to say who gets to police whose body?
(This is reminiscent of the time Melania Trump addressed critics of her naked photo shoots in her memoir, situating them in an artistic tradition that includes John Collier’s “Lady Godiva” and Michelangelo’s “David,” and noting that “we should honor our bodies and embrace the timeless tradition of using art as a powerful means of self-expression.”)
Perhaps the new code is simply calculated to prevent the sort of attention-grabbing stunt that occurred at the Grammys in February, when Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, crashed the red carpet with his wife, Bianca Censori, only to have her take off her fur coat to reveal her fully naked body “covered” by an entirely transparent nylon slip that provided no coverage at all. That seemed to have taken the trend to its ultimate, disturbing extreme by breaking the last barrier in naked dressing: genitalia.
Even though Ye had not actually been invited to the event, he and his wife dominated the headlines the next day more than the actual award ceremony.
The fact that the Cannes dress code also prohibits “voluminous outfits, in particular those with a large train, that hinder the proper flow of traffic of guests and complicate seating in the theater” suggests that what the organizers were really forestalling was the appearance of dresses that act as their own sort of performance art, grabbing eyeballs and dominating conversations that might otherwise be focused on the films that are the nominal point of the festival.
If that was the aim, however, it has somewhat backfired. By officially banning nudity on the carpet, the Cannes organizers simply sparked a raft of pieces (like this one) discussing nudity on the carpet. Most of them focus less on the actual meaning of the term in all its thorny nuance than the opportunity to revisit notorious nude-adjacent moments past.
You could have seen that one coming.
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