Sotheby’s has sold its most expensive jacket and artefact in US history. While first thoughts may link the jacket to a luxury house, like a post world war Coco Chanel jacket, or something fabulously decadent worn at Studio 54, it is in fact the first jacket worn in space by American astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
Sold for 2.77 million dollars, the jacket was worn on the Apollo 11 flight to the moon in 1969. Made of beta cloth, a fire resistant fabric, Mr Aldrin’s name is embroidered above the mission emblem on the left breast. It was manufactured by B. Welson Co. in the US in 1968.
Sotheby’s said the Buzz Aldrin: American Icon sale was “the most important space exploration collection to come to market” and the 92-year-old had “carefully preserved the materials since his mission”.
The luxury auction house also said the jacket is “an incredibly rare piece of flight worn gear from humanity’s first lunar-landed mission.”
“Following launch and completion of Translunar Injection, Aldrin and the other Apollo 11 crew members changed out of their pressure garments and into their much more comfortable Inflight Coverall Garments (ICGs), which consisted of a jacket, trousers, and boots fashioned from Beta cloth. Aldrin and his crewmates wore these garments for the entire journey to the Moon.”
