Why do they all wear NASA t-shirts?
"The one who displays the NASA logo on his t-shirt has in fact never set foot in space," titled the satirical Gorafi on his site last year.You also saw them in the streets, these young people proudly exhibiting a t-shirt, a jacket, socks embellished with the logo of the American space agency.It is nicknamed "Meatball", literally "meat ball".
A blue round similar to a planet made up of stars, a red vector and a circular orbit, on which appears in capital letters: NASA.If some surely feeds a great interest in aerospace, not sure that all are "capable of decomposing the acronym", protested our journalist Virginie Nussbaum in one of his chronicles.Whether you appreciate it or not, the trend challenges.Why did NASA become cool?
New cultural preferences
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Unsurprisingly, the concept has been imported from the United States, where Meatball has been in the big ready-to-wear channels such as Urban Outfitters, Forever 21 or Target for a few months, Forever 21 or Target at more than affordable (between $ 8 and 20).“The popularity of series such as The Big Bang Theory or personalities like Elon Musk has made organizations of the type of NASA desirable.This is a convergence of new cultural supply and preferences, "sums up Frédéric Godart, author of the book sociology of fashion.
So take a sitcom highlighting the aerospace universe, a charismatic personality working in the field, and you will get thousands of young people proudly sporting the colors of a government agency.
Read also: "The Big Bang Theory": the geeks will remove the floppy disk
Luxury brands niche
Some personalities have also helped to make NASA more cool.Ariana Grande, Kylie Jenner, Rihanna and Anne Hathaway have all been seen with a jacket, a sweater or a NASA t-shirt.In 2016, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the space agency, the English designer Heron Preston signed a capsule collection in its colors.He is inspired by the "Worm", a red logo used from the 1970s, which he revived on his high-tech pants, or on his astronaut jackets ranging from 550 to 1500 dollars.
Alpha Industries, le fabricant américain spécialisé dans la création de vêtements initialement à destination de l’armée américaine a exploré ces mêmes codes en créant une collection Nasa début 2017. D’autres marques, plus abordables, ont également suivi, à l’instar de Vans, Jules ou encore H&M.
What about NASA in all of this?
The government agency is definitely popular, but what about the reproduction of its logo?All the conditions for reuse are mentioned on the agency's website.We can notably read that NASA "will not promote or support any product, service or commercial activity" or that "identifiers, emblems, devices, images, NASA can be used as decoration on a product, butshould not be used in order to suggest a “co-marking” of the products ”.A regulation therefore well established.
"It is a small merchandising difficult to control.By conditioning the reproduction of its logo to a few rules, NASA can better frame this market, ”summarizes Me Anne Dorthe, specialist in intellectual property law.
If the desire for a collaboration is felt, it will still be necessary to inform NASA "Mister Merchandising", Bert Ulrich.The latter assures it, all requests are studied.
