DDesigning competition equipment for Olympic and Paralympic athletes is no easy task. It caters to the needs of a number of very different sports with comfort, performance and a somewhat unified aesthetic that shows gymnasts, sprinters and breakdancers are on the same team. It’s no surprise, then, that this level of juggling often results in Team GB wearing jerseys like Adidas at the Paris Olympics – which feel a bit generic and “designed by committee”. If you asked Midjourney to design a British Olympic outfit, it might look something like this.
News photos include kickboxers Bianca Cooke and Kaden Cunningham, long jumper Jazmine Sawyers and sprinter Nathanael Mitchell-Blake, who will compete in the event in July starting Olympics, as well as Olivia Breen and Zach Skinner competing in the long jump and sprint. There’s no doubt they look great, but on closer inspection it might be more about the hope and excitement these youngsters have for the upcoming multi-sport games than what they’re wearing.
The red, white and blue of the Union Jack are inevitably all present and correct, mostly through the color blocking: Sawyers in a red hoodie and Cunningham in a royal blue quarter-zip. It might be a good idea – even a clever deconstruction of a flag with a problematic history – but it’s confused with a “seen from space” graphic. Of course, the team name must be visible, but writing “UK” on the chests of athletes, whether they are wearing vests or tracksuit tops, is unimaginative.
This blandness may be due to the fact that the kit was designed in-house by the Adidas design team rather than a fashion brand. Stella McCartney designed the 2012 and 2016 Olympic suits, which are still relevant for fashionistas. 2012’s cropped Union Jack design or 2016’s amplified lion might not be to everyone’s taste, but they really showed the potential of the gear when designers outside of sportswear are involved. Imagine a kit designed by British talent like sportswear visionary Saul Nash in 2024?
Of course, there is a positive side here. 86% of the designs worn by athletes when competing, training and receiving medals are adaptive – meaning they can be worn by athletes with and without disabilities. The Team USA jersey came out this week, and female track and field athletes like Tara Davis-Woodhall initially complained that it was too revealing. By contrast, Sawyers’ low-rise shorts and crop tops (also worn by 400-meter sprinter Laviai Nielsen) look like designs designed to keep women focused on the race.
You could argue that kits like this help solve that problem – perhaps too much design can distract from the task at hand, when functionality and simplicity are best. The press release explains a nice detail – textured text that allows athletes to “feel the passion rising from the font” as they run their hands over it. It might look bland in the fashion world, but this kit is probably designed to help athletes do what they’re meant to do – win. We’ll have to wait until July to find out if it works.
