How Ralph Lauren designed the Olympic uniforms for Team USA

Nice weather Olympic Games are back in full force, with full-capacity crowds allowed in for the first time since 2016. At tonight’s opening ceremony, teams from around the world will parade down the Seine River in Paris and, for the ninth year, Team USA will worn by Ralph Lauren.

Founded as Polo in 1968, Ralph Lauren has always been inspired by sports. The brand introduced the world to the eponymous polo shirt in 1972, a garment that is now synonymous with tennis, golf, and other sportswear. Early ads referenced the “spirit of competition,” and even the Ralph Lauren logo, featuring a polo player, hints at athleticism. They were a natural choice to be the official outfitter for Team USA, an honor they have held since 2008. “At today’s Olympics, Ralph Lauren tells a modern story about sportsmanship at its best,” said Ralph Lauren’s chief creative and branding officer, David Lauren. Previous uniforms have drawn on the brand’s all-American spirit, creating silhouettes featuring blazers, boat shoes, and that most American of garments: blue jeans.

To get a closer look at Team USA’s 2024 opening and closing ceremony uniforms and athlete village attire, we visited RL’s headquarters, the New York factory where the apparel is made, and even traveled to Paris for a day of fittings for our video series. Behind the seams.

Made in USA

From start to finish, the Olympic uniforms are made in the United States. The design process begins at Ralph Lauren’s headquarters in New York, the city with the most fashion designers in the United States. The suits feature wool from Oregon and Colorado and are made by Ferrara Manufacturing, a family business based in Long Island City. “It’s part of America. It’s part of history. It’s part of the winning spirit,” Lauren says. More practically, “It’s a great opportunity to learn about American manufacturing.”

The Ferrara team worked on the uniforms for over a year, producing over 1,000 in total. For the opening ceremony, athletes will wear navy blue jackets with red trim, blue and white striped oxford shirts, light-wash jeans and white suede buck shoes. The closing ceremony uniforms will include white denim moto jackets emblazoned with the words ‘USA’, polo shirts and white jeans. Lauren said the goal was to create outfits that were “comfortable but also stylish” and showcased America’s excellent tailoring skills.

“When people think of American style, it’s a combination of business and casual,” says Jamal Hill, a para-swimmer. “Where else would people wear blue denim with a tuxedo? It’s all about combining the best elements of American culture and fashion.”

Ralph Lauren also designed the athletes’ village uniforms, which they wear during training and competition preparation. One such product is a twist on Ralph Lauren’s iconic American flag sweater. It’s white with a flag and the Olympic rings. “For Paris, we’re really looking at new fabrics, new silhouettes, things that feel fun and exciting,” Lauren says.

Traditional craftsmanship combined with advanced technology

At Ferrera, creating great clothes requires a combination of traditional methods and modern technology. In the warehouse, craftsmen inspect each piece of raw material and attach a QR code to it. The fabric is then fed into a spreading machine, which allows it to breathe before it is cut. Heavier fabrics like wool need to be spread more slowly and given more time to breathe than lighter fabrics.

A cutter scans a fabric sample and pulls it onto a nearby table. Some machines can cut multiple layers of fabric, layered like croissants. But others cut just one layer and are used for more complex fabrics. “We cut each layer of plaid and stripe individually… to get an exact match,” says Gabrielle Ferrara, CEO of Ferrara Manufacturing. Pieces cut from the same layer of fabric are then matched throughout the process, so garments can be made from the same piece of fabric.

Simpler components, like pocket flaps and cuffs, are sewn by machine. Ferrara’s team even produces custom 3D-printed pieces to guide sewing machines to attach Olympic patches and other components. But “there are some things you can’t replace humans for,” Ferrara says. Tailors sew jacket collars and more intricate parts by hand. “We like to combine modern technology with maintaining that craftsmanship.”

After sewing, garments go through a tailoring process, where buttons and snaps are added, followed by ironing. “Blazers, because of the many components and seams inside, are actually ironed throughout the production process, making them one of the most complex garments to produce,” says Ferrara.

Made to fit

The final step in the production process involves fitting each athlete, known as team fitting. Ralph Lauren tailors each of the 592 athletes in every sport, from basketball to gymnastics to swimming to badminton, and works closely with each to understand how they like their clothes to fit. “We all have completely different measurements depending on our sport,” says Daryl Homer, a competitive fencer on the team.

The final fitting took place on July 25, the day before the opening ceremony. “We really have no room for error here, so we make sure we’re precise in everything we do,” says Talveer Sehmbi, Ralph Lauren’s chief tailor for the Olympics and Paralympics. And that hasn’t gone unnoticed. Kamren Larsen, a competitor on the cycling team, said it was gratifying to see “the meticulous attention to detail that all the tailors and the entire staff put into making us feel the best we can be.”

“We take our job very seriously to help athletes feel as good as possible so they can focus on winning their games,” says Lauren. Or, as Hill puts it, “Look good, play good.”