I remember several years ago seeing a pressure suit design based on carefully engineered elastic material in contact with the skin. Instead of pressure on the skin produced by a pressurized gas, the pressure (force per unit area) was generated by the material itself. For obvious reasons a conventional gas-filled helmet was still required.
I'm not necessarily asking if the idea is good or bad. The effort appeared quite serious and I believe it was being done either within NASA or in conjunction with NASA. But I don't recall what it was called or other details.
I think the technical challenges included how to criss-cross elastic layers to keep pressure above minimum as the astronaut's body moved into its full vocabulary of configurations (e.g. moved around).
I'd like to know the name of the project, and if it has advanced since several years ago, and in particular if it is still active and is still thought to have a chance of working.