It was 2021. Still the thick of the pandemic, things felt so uncertain and claustrophobic. It was a time in my life I was feeling pretty trapped. I was also in the process of trying to start a new company using biotech in beauty. 

And one day, a colleague of mine sent me this paper about how microbial life in the clouds had been shifting as a result of the decrease in human activity during the pandemic. 

There was something about thinking about this invisible world up there that felt really expansive, for the first time in a long time. 

I wanted to capture the feeling, literally bottle it up. Not just as an idea, but a piece of the sky, a piece of possibility that you could actually wear to remind you that possibility is always there no matter what we are going through. 

Little did I know, this would take over five years. We thought we could simply send some drones up into the clouds to sample them. But in Massachusetts, which is where we are, there are all sorts of restrictions on drones so this turned out to not be an option. The only actual option was to fly up there ourselves. 

But, we didn’t have a plane, or a pilot. And even if we did find a plane and a pilot, would they be OK with us cracking open a window to capture the clouds? 

Coincidentally I ended up learning that my neighbors, Kenn and Erika, were hobby pilots on weekends. I told them what we were trying to do, and asked if they would be willing to help us. They’re engineers themselves, and also curious about what we would find, so they were in.

So one day in October 2021, we got in a plane with some petri dishes, and flew up into the clouds. It was not as romantic as people think. Quite the opposite in fact.

That is in Part 2. Read more here. 

- Jasmina, Founder