Olympic Couture

It might seem odd to expect anything sartorially significant to come out of a sporting event like the Olympic Games, but as it turns out the opening and closing ceremonies in Beijing's majestic "Bird's Nest" stadium are the world's biggest fashion shows. Before more than 90,000 cheering fans and a television audience of approximately two billion, participating countries get the chance to visually telegraph a message about their national spirit to the rest of the world.

Of course, the athletes are in Beijing to compete based on their physical skills, not their ability to outfit themselves, and most viewers probably failed to notice what they were wearing—and certainly didn't read much into it if they did.  But still, the fashion on display revealed some telling truths. From the look of things so far, the Fall/Winter 2008 global fashion season is distinguished by a few discernible trends: slouchy tracksuits, Gallic savoir faire and a healthy dose of reactionary chic.

The biggest sports-related news stateside has been the redesign of the U.S. uniforms by Ralph Lauren, who took the reins from Canadian company Roots. Lauren has built an empire by becoming the unofficial outfitter of the American Dream, marketing an idealized image of America's former ruling class to the nation at large. However, the WASP aesthetic he sells—think of characters from "The Great Gatsby," clothed in tennis whites and delicate tea dresses—has come to represent a classist and racist set of ideals, hardly representative of the current multicultural social fabric of the United States. A strange choice then, to redefine the U.S. team's visual identity in this way, even as it marches further away from the 20th century, when WASP power reached its peak. But if one stops to consider America's shaky status as the world's preeminent superpower, Lauren's nostalgic, retro creations begin to make more sense.

His designs for the Olympic team's appearance at the opening ceremony consisted of navy blue blazers (emblazoned with a gargantuan Polo logo) paired with white button-downs and matching trousers, accessorized with a jaunty white newsboy cap and red, white and blue silk tie or scarf. His ensembles for the closing ceremony are more casual, with white sleeveless knit-sweaters and crisp cotton-shorts. Social conservatives would probably fail to read anything insidious into these outfits—after all, at least the U.S. team looked pulled-together and semi-formal—but the clothes, in and of themselves, are not the problem. The issue is that the Polo brand is built upon an aesthetic intended to communicate to the world, the wearer's successful assimilation into the traditional institutions of upwardly-mobile American culture—the elitist world of typically WASP-only country clubs, prep schools and cotillions. (Never mind that Ralph Lauren, née Lifshitz, was born in the Bronx to Jewish immigrants who most certainly would not have been allowed into the country clubs that many of his designs seem destined for.)

"America has lately suffered something of an identity crisis," explains Claire Hamilton, retail editor of trend-forecasting website WGSN. "Our political failures abroad raise obvious questions about American authority. Ralph Lauren is a globally recognized classic, and more than any other American brand, it embodies a lifestyle, [although] maybe not one that the average American can identify with."

Lauren's clothing may represent an anachronistic era, but it also pays homage to the very contemporary idea of pervasive commercialism. For one thing, the U.S. Olympic team's outfits were made on the cheap in China, the better to bolster the bottom line. Then there is Lauren's vulgar addition of an enormous Polo logo to the breast of the blazers, the effect of which is to nearly eclipse the Olympic logo on the opposite side, and to equate the Olympics and Polo Ralph Lauren as being equal in value. Intelligent marketing perhaps, but not exactly in keeping with the heroic, selfless spirit of achievement that the ancient Greeks had in mind when they inaugurated the Games thousands of years ago. But the fact is, the Olympics are big business. NBC sold more than $1 billion worth of advertising slots, and Ralph Lauren stands to mint a fortune with online sales of a full line of replicas of the Olympic uniforms. (If you'd like to help him out, just head to ralphlauren.com.)