Designer brands have launched a whole new competition at the Paris Olympics: stunning uniform style

The Olympics haven’t officially started yet, but talk of the 2024 Summer Games in Paris has been raging for weeks. And what are we talking about, in the absence of javelin throws or gravity-defying gymnastics tricks? Uniforms, of course. This is France.

There was the semi-scandalous news that Lacoste, a company founded and named after the iconic French tennis player and Olympian, had been dropped by its home country in favour of a new kit from Le Coq Sportif, created in collaboration with designer Stéphane Ashpool of the very stylish Streetwear brand Pigalle. In a patriotic spirit, Ashpool has done its best to ensure that every seam is made in France (Lacoste, for its part, sells a retro “Heritage Paris 1924 Collection” inspired by the Paris Games of the last century).

But even though the Mongolian team uniforms developed by Ulaanbaatar-based designer Michel & Amazonka have became virally famousfour letters continue to dominate the Paris Games: LVMH. From the Louis Vuitton trunk specially designed to accompany the Olympic flame to Paris to the Chaumet medals made from pieces of the Eiffel Tower to the royal blue Berluti tuxedo jackets that will adorn the French team for this Friday’s opening ceremony, the $164 million the luxury giant reportedly paid to sponsor the Games appears to be paying handsome dividends.

Matilde Carli, a New York-based communications strategist who specializes in luxury and celebrity clientele, believes the Games are increasingly being co-opted by glamour. “The engagement we have now between luxury brands and the sports industry is growing stronger every day,” she says. Robb Report.

Although she expresses unease with the current marriage of elite athletics and high fashion (“Anytime an athlete gets distracted by something that’s not focused on their real job, it’s going to create a problem”), Carli acknowledges that Olympic partnerships are an effective way to increase a luxury brand’s global awareness. “I don’t think celebrities have to convert and drive sales, but I do think that type of celebrity, or that type of athlete, can create greater brand awareness.”

If the Paris Olympics seem to represent a new high point in the relationship between commerce and sport, the Games have for decades been linked to luxury. Wearing national uniforms for the opening ceremony, a tradition that dates back to the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, became a commodity in 1976, when Halston was chosen to outfit the U.S. team for that year’s Winter Olympics in Innsbruck and Summer Olympics in Montreal. The athlete-specific items, which saw Olympians like Bruce Jenner and Dorothy Hamill, then active, wearing flared pants and full leisure suits, quickly made their way to department stores for purchase by the general public.

Halston’s intervention was followed by Levi Strauss dressing the U.S. delegation at the 1984 Olympics, creating an opening between sport and style that could be exploited by brands and designers around the world. At the London 2012 Games, Armani was named the official outfitter of Team Italy, while the host nation’s athletes were dressed by Stella McCartney in collaboration with Adidas. And in 2016, Christian Louboutin helped the Cuban team turn heads by providing its athletes with custom-made guayabera-style jackets and sneakers featuring the designer’s signature red soles.

While designers have fallen out of fashion (the Great Britain team is now dressed by Ben Sherman), others have become inextricably linked to the athletes they dress, almost as much as the national identity of the team itself. Perhaps the most striking example is Ralph Lauren, which, despite only gaining official outfitter status for the US team in 2008, now seems an integral part of the Olympic experience.

“If you think about it, who else would you consider making the U.S. Olympic uniforms?” says the designer and Ralph Lauren: His Way Alan Flusser, author: “I think you could go to Nike, or maybe another sports brand. But frankly, their design wouldn't even be on the same level.”

According to Flusser, the ease with which Ralph Lauren dressed American athletes for the opening and closing ceremonies – and quickly sold the preppy, star-studded sportswear to the masses via his Team USA Collections—is due both to the designer's propensity for sport and the brand's long history of drawing inspiration from fashions created for skiing, shooting, sailing and other sporting activities.

“From the beginning, sport was part of its overall design ethic,” says Flusser. Robb Report. “It's now hard to tell the difference between an Olympian's look and a Ralph Lauren creation.”

This is the kind of Olympic gold that Berluti – and any other luxury brand that finds itself named “official equipment supplier” – aspires to.