Never forget the Ralph Lauren 2014 Winter Olympics Team USA sweaters
The 2018 Winter Olympic looks for Team USA are fine, but they were never going to eclipse the sweaters from Sochi.
Ralph Lauren released photos of Team USA’s Winter Olympics opening and closing ceremony looks and they are, at best, whatever. The parkas are heated (!), which is neat. (The gloves warrant a separate conversation, both aesthetically and vis-a-vis appropriation.) The snowboard team’s uniforms, which they will compete in and were designed by Burton, are better, but inexplicably NASA-themed.
However, this announcement (should) mostly serve to remind everyone of Sochi 2014 and what the Team USA Olympians wore as they walked proudly in the opening ceremony procession. Specifically, the sweaters.
Sweaters are a Winter Olympics fashion staple because they are a winter fashion staple. A good sweater can truly make a snowy cabin and/or chalet ski weekend look. A good sweater can be both chic and cozy and, in the context of the Olympics, flag-reminiscent. Both of this year’s sweaters — the one for the opening ceremony and the one for the closing ceremony — are decent. One could wear them in public and convey subtle patriotism and/or just an affinity for pullovers and the colors red and blue. More significant, however, is the fact they are both designed to be worn under parkas.
https://twitter.com/TeamUSA/status/955883265990250501
The sweater situation was very different in 2014. Four years — truly a lifetime — ago, the Ralph Lauren Team USA sweater was designed to be worn, it appears, in lieu of a parka.
And of course it was, it was a masterpiece. The 2014 Winter Olympic collection, specifically it’s centerpiece sweater, was astoundingly ugly. It was an ugly sweater of such commitment to the form as to be raised to a work of art.
Look, remember:
Observe all the terrible details:
It’s so amazingly extra. “Loud” or “bold,” if we’re being polite. What’s with the extra American flag on the sleeve? What’s with Sochi on the cuff? Why is Sochi not woven near 2014 and the rings? That would certainly make sense. Because yes, there are also rings and “2014” knit into the sweater, lest we ever forget what year and what occasion, produced this sweater. Then there’s the other panel of the cardigan, with US, Olympic, Sochi — but in a slightly different style. The stripes and Polo logo on the sweater’s lapel (is it called a lapel if its on a sweater?) is also confusing. And the stars. There are so, so, so many stars.
Please also never forget that they were paired with particularly bad hats. The hats, for reasons I can’t exactly pin down, seem to hyper-highly all the awful parts of the sweater. Mainly the stars. (Sidebar: Team USA, at both the Winter and Summer Games, has a real hat problem.)
Another thing: The cardigans were also inexplicably ugly. This was the Olympics. And yes, Team USA does not have the most fashionable track record at the Winter Olympics (shout out to this wildly 80s Levi Strauss look and the time Team USA looked like they were ready to do some light spy work after the ceremony), but still. Had ugly ever been the primary reference point before? This wasn’t like the Urban Outfitters oh-we-made-a-thematic-ugly-sweater-for-edgy-youths-who-love-the-Olympics retail version. This was what the U.S. sent our most athletic representatives out into global competition in. (Though it should be said Ralph Lauren did sell the sweater to the non-Olympian public for the reasonable price of $600.
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Everything about the Sochi Winter Olympics sweaters is amazing. That they exist. That we don’t talk about them more. That they’re terrible, but also iconic and perfect and I guess that makes them very American? The 2014 Team USA sweaters are so, so ugly and yet, I still want one so bad. Partially because of the pockets.