The Best of Style in Sports from Past Olympic Games
As 10,000+ athletes begin competing on the most watched televised sports event in the world (at an incredibly inconvenient time for us Australians considering the 8-hour time difference), history is being made.
For the first time,the Olympics features an exactly equal proportion of male and female athletes, with 5,250 women and 5,250 men competing. The last time Paris hosted the Olympics, exactly 100 years ago in 1924, and out of 3,089 athletes, only 135 were women.
The games regularly garner around 3 billion watchers, and there is so much to see. This year it includes the debut of breaking as a new sport, a hedonistically extravagant opening ceremony – the largest in the Olympics’ history – and of course, what the athletes are wearing.
To start, the USA’s female gymnastics team wore the single most expensive sports uniforms ever debuted at the Games: leotards hand studded with over 10,000 Swarovski crystals. Meanwhile, team Mongolia’s Olympic uniform, featuring intricately embroidered vests and flowing pleated robes, each taking around 20 hours to craft, were summed up perfectly by sports creator geoff0w_ on TikTok, saying “these go ridiculously hard.”
With almost half of the whole world’s population watching, what Olympic athletes wear is objectively important. As the games continue to unfold over the next two weeks, this article seeks to highlight notable fashion moments from both past and the current Games.
Jewellery
Though athletes often remove any loose jewellery before they compete, this isn’t always the case. One of the earliest examples of this, and probably my favourite too, is Edwin Moses from the 1988 Seoul Olympic games. Known for his impressive achievements—three Olympic medals, pioneering drug testing policies in track and field, and his unique competition style—Moses stood out for competing while wearing a gold chain, gold bracelet, ring, and sunglasses. Despite the unconventional look, he clinched bronze in the 400m.
Nyara Sabally, a German professional basketball player, got customized 14k gold grills in the shape of the Olympic rings. Notably, the three centre rings are also in the colours of the German flag. Sabally is currently representing Germany in their women’s 3x3 basketball team at her first Olympics despite living and playing in the US. The team has successfully delivered the nation their first win against Belgium in women’s basketball.
Eyewear
In the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics were sponsored by Reebok, who paid $40 million for the rights to exclusively outfit the event. This deal compromised any chance of any other sports brand to be visible at the Game. Linford Christie, arguably the most successful male athlete to represent Britain, had a Puma tattoo, which he signed an agreement to cover during the competition. However, his loyalty to the brand did not end there. He showed up wearing Puma contact lenses to a press conference at the Games. Though striking, they were swiftly banned, which reminds me of Nike’s MaxSight contact lenses, a topic for another article.
Created by Oakley Eyewear, the Over The Top (OTT) sunglasses were engineered with sprinters in mind to reduce bounce, shock, and absorption while running. They were first worn by Niconner Alexander in the Sydney 2000 Olympic games. They can now only be bought on resale websites, with prices starting at $1,000.
Teams
The opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games often feature athletes from various countries gathering in matching outfits, showcasing their national pride. One of my favourite team ensembles would have to be Japan from the Athens 2004 Games. The athletes wore colourful coats and hats, following the theme “Show Your Colours” waving uchiwa fans, Japanese paper handheld fans often used in summer.
In the 1992 Barcelona games, team Lithuania, competing for the first time as a nation outside of the soviet union, needed help with their uniforms. The Lithuanian team’s acting physician at the time, who happened to be a fan of Miyake’s work, reached out to the Japanese clothes designer asking him to design the team uniform. Fortunately, Issey Miyake answered their call for aid. The designer admitted that this would be a difficult task as athletes come in so many shapes and sizes. His solution was to use his ‘Pleats Please’ technology. The pleats in this line of clothing had fine concertina pleats that expand and retract with the wearer’s movement, originally inspired by dancers and how clothes flow with the movement of the wearer’s body.
Nails
Though athletes that compete at the games can be described as “tough as nails,” this doesn’t mean their fingernails have to be. From Florence Joyner, the fastest recorded woman to ever live, to Sha’Carri Richardson and Bree Masters in this year’s Games, athleticism and glam meet on the track.
Bree Masters became the first Australian woman to make the 100m semis since the 2000 Sydney Olympic games. Here she is wearing a soft yellow set, matching with her Australian uniform.
Florence Joyner (Flo-Jo) is largely credited with the popularisation of acrylic nails, which she wore both off the track as well as while competing on it. Though her nails were always her own, she inspired the use of adding fake tips to extend the length of the wearer’s nails.
Inspired by Flo-Jo, her mother, and grandmother, Sha’Carri Richardson wears lavish nails as she runs, quoted saying “[They] influence the beauty I exude to the world.” On the late Olympian, she said “If the amazing Flo-Jo had long nails, there was no excuse why I couldn’t.”
To close
As Issey Miyake said while designing team Lithuania’s uniform, “sportswear is the most innovative and diverse,” because “it focuses on the fresh sensation of function, colour, material.” When athletes perform for the world, the world will take notice of what they’re wearing, so their style choices tend to be at the crux of the intersection of functionality and novel design.
Sources
Edwin Moses still leading the fight against doping in athletics, Irish Times, Donald McRae, February 10, 2020.
Ioc. (n.d.). Edwin MOSES. Olympics.com. https://olympics.com/en/athletes/edwin-moses
"Nyara Sabally - Germany - Stats, News, Photos & Videos - Women's Olympic Basketball Tournament Paris 2024 | FIBA.basketball". www.fiba.basketball.
Ioc. (n.d.-b). Linford CHRISTIE. Olympics.com. https://olympics.com/en/athletes/linford-christie
Oakley’s most iconic sunglasses : Over the top. (n.d.). https://www.goodproduct.uk/fashion/oakleys-most-iconic-sunglasses-over-the-top
Fashion police: Show your colours at Athens 2004. (2020, December 22). Olympics.com. https://olympics.com/en/news/fashion-police-show-your-colours-at-athens-2004
Hughes, N. (2023, August 16). The History of the Hero: Pleats Please Issey Miyake. Harper’s BAZAAR. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/fashion/a44827008/pleats-please-issey-miyake/
Arena Magazine: Total Sport featuring Issey Miyake, 1992 | Archive Fashion Scan. (n.d.). ARCHIVE.pdf. https://www.archivepdf.net/arena-magazine-total-sport-featuring-issey-miyake-1992
Ryu, J. (2024, July 31). The Sweet Reason Track Star Sha’Carri Richardson Does Her Nails—Plus Her Best Styles to Date. SELF; SELF. https://www.self.com/story/shacarri-richardson-nails
