Olympics Uniforms

Recently all the participating countries to the 2012 London Olympics presented their Olympics kits, including a set of suits for opening ceremony and several sportswear for award ceremonies and competitions. Athletes from hundreds of countries will get together in London, which makes the Olympics a best time to show the world the differences. This explains why designers always choose colors on national flags, and try to include state plants or animals on collars, cuffs or hem, like the giant tulips brooch for Dutch athletes, and kangaroo-shaped embroideries on their Australian counterparts' suits.

The strictly-limited choice of colors differentiates Olympics uniforms from most fashion designs. This could be a very challenging job especially when the colors are not so comparable, like red and green, or purple and yellow. However, fashion masters know how to use these colors wisely, and create an unparalleled beauty by putting contrast colors together. Please take a quick look on the right side. Most people probably won't wear navy blue and bright orange together (unless you are connected to Princeton,) but the orange coat and the blue dress that the third lady from the left is wearing match so well. The bright orange and the highly saturated blue make a perfect comparison, their owner shines like a star.

If you're not comfortable with intense usage of contrast colors, instead you may choose one of them as the main color, and use others as decoration. Ralph Lauren decided to dress American athletes in this safe but a little mediocre way. When I looked at these people standing in front of the Stars and Strips, I thought it's just another Ralph Lauren show. Quite satisfactory design and typical American style, everything is nice in absence of that beret from 1960s.

This is a little bit off the topic, but dear Mr. Reid, I fully agree with you that the US Olympic Committee is out of their minds and these made-in-China uniforms should be burned in piles immediately, which is exactly the right thing to do today! No trade, no foreign-made! Though most commodities would be much more expensive than today, but US textile industry will absolutely be saved, and people will happily work in textile workshops again. In the end, just a kind reminder: the US electronic, cosmetic, luxury, auto... and shipping industry may not be happy with your new law of closing international trade and excluding the US from a market of 1.4 billion potential consumers. But I'm sure you'll find a way to deal with that.

Back to uniforms. Now I will present you the kits of the Great Britain. Designed by Stella McCartney, it breaks down the Union flag and removes the redness from the flag to make it look "modern". Some internet users criticized her design and demanded to "get the red back", but she did a good job in defending herself, and won a lot of supports later on. I came across a small piece on the union flag's evolution earlier today. It looks like the red diagonal St. Patrick's cross represents Ireland, whose color can be hardly seen in UK uniforms. I think Stella is very lucky that she's not born in China. Just imagine, if we have some cute stuff representing Tibet on our Five-star flag, which is removed by the designer for beauty concerns, how Chinese "angry youth" will scold at this poor woman! What's worse, if the big brother is not happy, she'd be in real trouble.

Thus China has a very politically right Olympics kit, which however is a strong candidate for the Annual Worst Dressed Award. Red is my favorite color, and I love yellow too. But I've never expected them to be so ugly until I saw Chinese athletes presenting their uniforms. For those familiar with Chinese cuisine, there is one popular dish in China called tomato fried eggs, yummy and easy to cook. When that dish is served, the plate is filled with bright red and yellow, as you can imagine the color of eggs and tomatoes. Random mixture of these two colors makes the dish very tempting, but not the suits. If the designer (if there is any) don't have good controls over these two colors, try a more conservative way and be safe! It's also very funny that other countries decorate their uniforms with national flowers, while we decorated them with our national dishes. Anyway, the PRC Olympics kit is nothing but a tomato fried eggs with too many tomatoes.

I read somewhere a few days ago that the buttons on these uniforms are 24K gold. I also want to express my deepest sorrow for these buttons, you guys really deserve better than this.