Y-3 designs collection for Virgin Galactic

New York - Let's operate under the assumption that Yohji Yamamoto watched too many episodes of television's The Jetsons growing up. Or, his favorite part of U.S. history was when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. Either way, Yamamoto has proven his penchant for all things outer space and futuristic by creating an astronaut inspired collection from Y-3 for Virgin Galactic.

Yamamoto's designs have fallen into the athleisure trend, but he stands out from other athleisure offerings by doing things like metallic paneling on his sweatshirts, neoprene and rubber detailed sneakers, and geo stitching on his moto parkas. However, Yamamoto has outdone himself this time with these new pieces for astronauts.

The designer, who is known for falling outside of the traditional lines of what qualifies as a trend, stayed true to himself with this collection. He could potentially be setting the trend for the usual designer trickle down effect to follow, with other contemporary and luxury designers opting for more futuristic elements to their clothing.

Y-3 and Virgin Galactic collaborate for space friendly pieces

Virgin Galactic is the spaceflight company that's part of billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Group. They are currently developing a commercial spacecraft that will provide suborbital flights to space tourists, suborbital launches for space science missions, and orbital launches of small satellites. This is their first fashion endeavor.

The space tourist company reached out to Yamamoto to design a collection of apparel for their pilots, future astronauts, and members of their operations team located in New Mexico at Spaceport America. These aren't your traditional fashion pieces, however. The designs have underwent extensive testing to ensure that they are functional.

For example, the flight suit will be tailored to a pilot's natural seating position. The materials are also specially engineered. The two companies also collaborated on a jacket that will be distributed to astronauts and future passengers of Virgin Galactic's space tourist flights.

photo:theverge.com