I don’t know about you but I absolutely love the Olympics. If you don’t know me, you won’t realize that this may be kind of strange. Normally I have no interest in sports. None. I work out which I consider “fitness” not “sports”. We could have a philosophical discussion about the differences or similarities, but let’s skip it and move on to fashion.
Since I love the Olympics so much, I watch them incessantly switching among the multiple channels they’re on (once again, unlike me). It really helps to own my business because I can spend as much time as humanly possible not missing a thing. I’m saying all of this to make the point that I’ve seen most of the uniforms of most of the countries that have competed thus far.
Right now I’m watching the men’s synchronized 10 meter platform diving finals and don’t see any speedo type suits that aren’t fashionable. They’re country appropriate with colors and design.
You would think that all uniforms, even if not stylish would at least let you know what country they’re representing. Nope. As I watched men’s badminton yesterday, I was shocked and thrown off when the US uniforms were bright yellow with black lettering. Huh?? Where is the red, white and blue? I honestly couldn’t focus on the match because I kept forgetting which team was ours. I told my husband if I would have designed them, I would have made the shirts red with a cool dark blue geometric, modern badminton racket splashed across them; maybe going from front to lower back. Shorts would have been the same dark blue.
Some of the uniforms I really liked such as the men’s beach volleyball-definitely all the right colors with some graphic stripes on the shorts. Nice. The women’s dark blue basketball uniforms, although not overly exciting, are recognizable as ours. Go ladies go!
So can Olympic uniforms be stylish while still being functional? Absolutely. The designers just need to let their creative juices flow.
What are your style ideas for Olympic uniforms?
One last thing that has nothing to do with fashion. Top level media (you know who you are), when you’re referring to the Beijing Olympics, Beijing is pronounced Beyjing as in jingle; not Beyzshing as in genre. Please be respectable of the inhabitants of that city and the whole country of China. Thanks.
