Five years ago, The New York Times asked street wear designer Heron Preston, who formerly served as Kanye West’s art director and is a founding member of the DJ/art collective, Been Trill, who his dream collaborator was. He responded by saying he’d emailed NASA, in hopes of designing “spaceships and astronaut gear.”
It would appear that dream has finally been actualized—sort of. Today, Hypebeast posted a first look at what they claim is Preston’s collaboration with NASA for his label’s forthcoming collection, “Public Figure,” which will debut at Paris Fashion Week later this week.
By the looks of it, Preston has not so much designed astronaut gear as much as streetwear that bears a distinct resemblance to astronaut gear—the kind of thing you might imagine an off-duty astronaut wearing back on earth, while he picks up soy lattes, goes to Sofar Sounds concerts or scans independent used bookstores for obscure sci-fi novels. Judging by the photos, the collection appears to include a fanny pack, a windbreaker, pants and a backpack. Taken together, they look kind of goofy; like some of the other outré stuff that routinely appear on the runways at high-profile fashion shows—ugly shoes, first amongst them—this is not the kind of outfit you’d likely wear in your everyday life. On their own, though, the pieces are actually pretty wearable—I especially like the backpack.
What do you think? Are you willing to head into spring looking like Neil Armstrong morphed into a Vetements model?