Spain’s “Nation” website published an article on July 15 stating that the fashion industry has a long-standing relationship with the Olympic movement. The Olympics is a huge commercial display window, and the costume design allows people to perceive the pulse of an era.
Hudson Bay, a local brand that cooperates with Canadian officials and designs and produces team uniforms for athletes, said: “The Japanese capital is famous for its urban style and art form. This is how we want to pay tribute to Tokyo.”
The uniforms of the US national team are designed by the official long-term partner Ralph Lauren, with a simple and distinctive style and advanced fabric technology.
The Olympics is the most important sporting event in the world held every four years. From the point of view of the media, this is a grand gathering of thousands of people. For the fashion industry, especially the sportswear industry, is there a better display opportunity than the Olympics? According to data from the German Statis Research Company, by 2021, the total value of the sportswear market will exceed 300 billion euros.
In the fashion industry, the actual benefits associated with the Olympics are actually not a lot, because most team uniforms are conceived as saleable clothing series. Ralph Lauren did this, and so did Hudson Bay. The Hudson Bay Company operates as a chain across Canada, and the Canadian team uniforms designed by it are now available for purchase on its website. Although brand owners and designers usually do not receive any financial compensation, they are honored and proud of their contributions to the Olympics.
In fact, the relationship between fashion and the Olympic Games can be traced back a long time ago. The London Olympics in 1948 witnessed the development and growth of the Italian company Missoni. The Italian team athlete Otavio Missoni and his teammates designed a new type of sportswear and sold it in Trieste, Italy. This is a kind of wool sportswear, because the bottom of the pants has a zipper, so it is warmer and particularly comfortable to wear. In the competition that year, all Italian athletes wore this sportswear named Venjulia.
Looking to the future, sustainable development, diversity, and integration are likely to become new clothing labels, in order to be more in line with the Olympic motto-faster, higher, and stronger. At the same time, this also further proves how fashion reflects its era, society and culture, and through world-renowned sporting events is also a major channel chosen by the fashion industry.
At the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, the fashion industry and the Women’s Liberation Movement revolutionized the clothing of female track and field athletes and swimmers. During the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, the fashion industry also played a role in changing people’s attitudes towards sportswear. At that time, sportswear added elastic synthetic fibers, which brought a subversive change in the performance of competition clothing. Subsequently, these fabrics began to become the mainstream fabrics for sportswear during the Helsinki Olympic Games in 1952 and the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956. Since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, sports brands have brought new vitality to streetwear, and gradually established a leading position in the fashion industry.
