Project Hail Mary, Full of Fashion
I walked into Project Hail Mary (2026) expecting to cry over a sentient rock. I walked out completely obsessed, not just with the film and the hardcore soulmatism of Grace (Ryan Gosling) and Rocky, but with Ryland Grace as a character, and more unexpectedly, with his unbelievable sense of style.
What were the costume designers (David Crossman and Glyn Dillon) on, and where can I get some? Their work in this film is a huge part of what makes it what it is. It shouldn’t come as a surprise: Crossman was the costume designer for Rogue One (2016), and Dillon was a concept artist for Kingsman (2014), another film where the characters practically breathe through their clothes.
What makes Ryland Grace’s wardrobe so compelling is not just how it looks, but how it humanizes him: turning a sterile sci-fi setting into something warm, familiar, and deeply personal.
As someone with ADHD (trust me, I would not be doing this if I wasn’t completely hyperfixated), who also loves fashion, majored in film, and writes sci-fi in her spare time, this movie feels like it was engineered in a lab specifically for me. I’ve seen people all over X (former Twitter) and Tumblr hunting desperately for his crocheted fox cardigan. The cream Converse he wears with his NASA jumpsuit sold out. The glasses have triggered full Reddit investigations.
What is it about Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher, that has pulled in the fashion crowd by the masses?
Let me try and break it down. With SPOILERS, proceed with caution.
Ryland Grace: When Simplicity Becomes Desirable
The first time we see Grace, he’s waking up from a coma inside the Hail Mary ship. He doesn’t know who he is or where he is, and he’s wearing a clinical, latex-like hibernation suit.
Then he starts opening suitcases, trying to make sense of what’s happening, and that’s when we realize this isn’t going to be a sterile, cold, all-white sci-fi film. This is going to be colorful.
Grace, now with a full beard and long hair, throws on white sunglasses, a hat, summer shorts, and a pink satin robe with sakura flowers. He walks around the ship with a straw connected to a floating bag of vodka. He is instantly memorable. Instantly magical.
And then, the first real fashion statement hits.
To give his crewmates a proper funeral, people he has no memory of, he shaves his beard, cuts his hair, and puts on the cuntiest NASA jumpsuit the world has ever seen.
It’s immaculate. The fabric looks expensive, the cut is perfect, and the mustard yellow is somehow the most beautiful shade imaginable. The Hail Mary logo, Grace’s name stitched onto the chest over the golden wings, it all adds to the impact.
And then: Converse. Specifically, Chuck 70s in the color cream.
There is something deeply human about that choice. In the middle of space, surrounded by technology and isolation, he’s grounded by something casual, familiar, almost stubbornly ordinary. The contrast is genius.
As a lifelong Converse wearer (and Vans hater), I immediately filed them away. I needed those sneakers! Reportedly, the film even gave the brand a noticeable boost.
In a world that’s felt particularly harsh lately, I didn’t know I needed Ryan Gosling as a middle school teacher wearing a mustard yellow NASA jumpsuit, striped socks, and cream Chuck 70s while in space! But I did, and I thank the Film Gods for giving me that.
And that’s not the only jumpsuit, he wears a variety of them throughout the film. The red one is another stunner, and it quietly ties into the film’s recurring “red string of fate” motif, especially in scenes with Rocky, adding another layer of meaning to what could have been just another costume change.
The Nerdy T-Shirts
Even if you don’t care about fashion at all, I know you noticed (and liked!) Grace’s science puns t-shirts.
The director Christopher Miller explained the decision: “A lot of the silly science tees are based on t-shirts that my son, a science nerd, wears on a daily basis. So he took pictures of his t-shirt collection and sent them to the costume department.”
He wears several of them throughout the film, but we don’t see him wearing any of these shirts back on Earth. So, are they actually his? Does he even like them? Or did Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) just buy (she made the Hail Mary hats after all) and packed them for him thinking it’s something he might wear, like and find funny?
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Perhaps to forget he was forcefully sent on a suicide mission to never return home? We just don’t know. But the shirts work, thank you Eva.
Look at that red jumpsuit tied around his waist, I can’t get over it and I don’t think I ever will. Is Grace naturally that effortlessly cool or is that just Ryan Gosling’s natural demeanor sprinkled all over him?
Teacher Ryland Grace
Back on Earth, Grace keeps remembering moments of who he is and what he did. And I promise you probably had a cool science teacher like him at one point in your life. You can tell his students adore him, and that he loves what he does.
Can we talk about the blazer with the jeans and the blue shirt? The Chuck's are there again, does he own any other shoes? Probably not. He can't even afford to buy a car, so he bikes to work ("Not by choice," as he says).
He embodies a very specific archetype: the effortlessly cool teacher who isn’t trying to be cool at all. Look at his little yellow raincoat. Grace wears a lot of yellow in this film. Is that his favorite color? The color of a sun he'll never get to see again?
The Glasses
Grace’s glasses are practically their own character. He wears them hanging off one ear, which is both impractical and deeply charming. It’s such an endearing quirk, which only adds to the character’s overall whimsy.
Apparently, the choice came from Ryan Gosling himself, after his daughter said the character looked “smarter” with glasses, and we’re forever grateful to her.
For those of you who want a pair: they’re vintage from Savile Row Eyewear. But you can find pretty similar pairs online.
The(e) Cardigan
This is the cardigan X went cuckoo for. I've seen at least 10 people learning how to knit just to make this cardigan. Grace wears this several times throughout the film, and it's the cardigan he is wearing in the final scene of the film as well. It looks beautiful. There’s a recurring fox motif in the film: the cardigan, a fox keychain left by Stratt, even a fox mask Grace wears briefly after waking up.
According to Glyn Dillon, the cardigan was inspired by a vintage piece he found, originally featuring wolves. Gosling suggested switching them to foxes after noticing London’s urban foxes during filming, something he described as “magical.”
Glyn Dillon: “I used to refer to them as Cowichan cardigans until I was educated by a Canadian friend. Of course genuine Cowichan sweaters are only made by the Salish people of southeastern Vancouver Island, British Columbia. This wolf one is from a 1950s Mary Maxim pattern.”
The Red (String of Fate) Space Suit
The red string of fate (an East Asian concept describing an invisible bond between destined people) motif is absolutely enormous in Project Hail Mary. The Petrova line is red. Blood reaches toward Rocky. And Grace’s space suit is red.
I have no idea if this was intentional or not, the image of Grace tethered to the ship by a bright red line against the darkness of space is striking. It evokes connection, inevitability, and the idea that some encounters are simply meant to happen.
The last time we saw a red spacesuit was in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and while it was definitely a nod to that, I like to think everyone involved in making that suit was aware of the red string of fate of it all. What a special little concept.
According to Glyn Dillon: EVA Suits were made by Cutter Jenny Alford and her team, gloves and boots made by Ian Jones and team, and hard parts made by @fbfx_ltd
That Badass Quilt
I could go on forever, but I'll end it on a bright note: the quilt. My favorite shot of the entire film is Grace sitting alone in the stark white ship with a colorful quilt wrapped around his shoulders, something that was obviously a labor of love. It's only a moment, but it tells us everything we need to know about his character and his connection to Earth. We get no explanation of where this quilt comes from: Did his students make it? Did Stratt leave it for him? Did it belong to someone else? We don't know and it doesn't matter, the quilt becomes his.
It follows him everywhere, like a child's blanket. On his first "sleepover" with Rocky watching him sleep, in the ship, and in the very end, to his new home in Erid, where he carefully and lovingly puts it on top of his bed. He probably has no memory of where this quilt comes from, and neither do we.
There are so many more moments where the fashion in this film takes center stage, and I could genuinely talk about it for hours, but I’ll spare you (for now). In a story about survival, science, and connection, it’s ultimately the small, human details: the clothes, the textures, the warmth, that make us stay.
Grace Rocky save fashion. For more costume design like this in future sci-fi films, please. Amaze amaze amaze.
