[yodon]

This seems like a good time to mention the history of the Apollo space suits, which were made for the manliest of men in the highly gender normed 1950's by the largest corset and bra maker in the country. Why? Because bras and girdles require incredibly high skill design and fabrication engineering, as bra theory is discovering and as no other garment manufacturer of the day could equal.

[0] http://mentalfloss.com/article/82726/how-playtex-helped-win-...

[Isamu]

I highly recommend the book:

Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo by Nicholas de Monchaux

>How the twenty-one-layer Apollo spacesuit, made by Playtex, was a triumph of intimacy over engineering.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/spacesuit

It has an interesting behind-the-scenes look at how Playtex succeeded where other contractors failed, how they were almost cut out of the deal anyway, and ended up being awarded the contract as a subcontractor to another company that was able to provide the necessary government-compliant documentation.

[rootusrootus]

That sounds really interesting, but Google says that ILC Dover had become it's own division in the later 1940s and was already into aerospace before Apollo came along. So ... was it really Playtex switching from bras to space suits, or is that just click bait because the only real involvement of Playtex is as the legal owner of the division?

[saalweachter]

The GP actually left out the critical portion of the story.

The reason Playtex built the space suits because they were the ones who came up with the idea of a cloth spacesuit.

Building a space suit is tricky because you are pressurized over the environment; if you just sewed a simple air-proof garment it would inflate and it would be difficult to bend your arms and legs to move around in space. Most companies bidding on building a spacesuit were proposing designs similar to deep sea suits, which are rigid metal and plastic with complicated joints to allow it to bend and move while maintaining a constant volume.

Playtex was able to design a constant-volume air-tight suit out of layers and layers (like 17) of different types of fabric; this was directly related to their core competencies.

[gowld]

It was the same expertise of the company that made bras. Playtex didn't own ILC Dover because of some financial engineering, but because of a shared core competency in materials engineering and manufacturing.

[Spooky23]

Specialty garmet and textile work is a skilled trade that requires time to mature. There’s more synergy than you might think!

[girvo]

That’s fascinating, but makes sense! Considering how unique everyone’s bodies, and especially breasts can be, it’s amazing that mass produced even gets to “almost good enough”; I can’t wish Bra Theory enough luck!