[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.