Apparel Lessons From Nike and Lululemon’s Olympic Collections

While Ralph Lauren is responsible for what Team USA wears during the Opening Ceremony of the Summer Olympics, it’s pretty much Nike’s show after that.

The sportswear brand that’s synonymous with names like Michael Jordan is the official outfitter of the U.S. (and other countries’) Olympic teams. Accordingly, it has apparel for just about every moment that the athletes are on-site in Paris. From the competitions to the post-event interviews to the Olympic Village dorms, each piece is meticulously designed to form a cohesive and performance-driven branding statement.

Credit: Nike

At its core, it’s a sportswear apparel promotional campaign. It’s just an extremely high-profile one.

Nike recently unveiled the full wardrobe that Team USA athletes will wear. It consists of more than 50 pieces of apparel, footwear, and accessories.

“Athletes will represent Team USA with hang out, warm-up and training gear that offers comfort, style, and performance benefits as they experience the glory of the games,” the Nike ad copy reads over a spread-out image of the outfits.

On the comfortable side of the spectrum, there are sweatpants, crewneck sweatshirts, socks, slippers, and T-shirts. As things get a little more athletic, the pants have a more noticeable taper for easier movement and the pockets have zippers. The sneakers are still comfortable, but more apt for the gym than just bumming around in the dorms. The trend continues into pieces like sports bras, performance apparel and hats, shorts, and backpacks. All of it uses the red, white, and blue Team USA motif.

The collections are divided into three functional categories: Village Wear, Interview Wear, and Medal Ceremony.

The Village Wear collection has a men’s version and a women’s version with small differences, like tank tops versus sports bras, different fits, and shoes.

Women's Village Wear collection

Perhaps one of the notable aspects of the collection is that the apparel designed for the medal ceremonies – when the winners are standing on the podiums receiving their medals – was designed with gender neutrality in mind. There is no women’s podium apparel or men’s podium apparel. It’s simply a zip-up jacket and sweatpants.

Like so much modern athletic or athleisure apparel, the wearables work for both fashion and function.

“While it was designed to be worn during an incredibly important global sporting event, I was comfortable and still felt very chic wearing it,” Team USA athlete Sunny Choi said, according to People.

Medal Ceremony Collection | Credit: Nike

Nike also included design elements with Paralympic athletes – who might have prosthetic legs – in mind, like second pocket entry on the thigh, enhanced ventilation, and a longer leg vent with zipper access.

International Aesthetics

Athletes from other countries like Canada and Australia took to social media to show off the wide range of branded apparel they received in the Olympic Village, with everything from T-shirts to bags with their team colors and branding.

Canada’s gear, showed off by Olympic sailor Sarah Douglas, was all supplied by Lululemon. Lululemon is a tastemaker in the athleisure movement, creating athletic-inspired merchandise that can be worn on the street or in the office. Like the U.S. gear, Canada’s apparel included lots of different outfit choices ranging from T-shirts to light jackets, headwear, socks, and shorts.

Naturally, the collection makes use of the red and white Canada branding in different ways. Sometimes a maple leaf is featured. Other times, the messaging is something simple like “CAN.” Then there are more formal iterations, with the full name and logo.

Promo Takeaways

What’s the takeaway from all this for promotional products distributors? Here’s one: For distributors who work with branded apparel, it’s important to provide options. Creating ways for different pieces to be mixed and matched for different applications creates a sense of agency in the end-user. It feels less like a uniform, even if it is. Additionally, it shows that comfortable athletic-influenced apparel is still popular for just about any time.

The Olympics are a huge campaign for Nike and Lululemon, but the lessons can still be scaled for any distributor of any size working on a campaign for any client. The branding needs to be consistent and prominent. The apparel needs to be stylish and functional – after all, people should feel good wearing it. Gender-neutral options can appeal to quite literally any end-user when done well.

Interview and Medal Ceremony collections

And, as always, make sure the logo is placed prominently but not in a way that makes it feel too much like a billboard. Even brands like Nike, and even an occasion like the Olympics, sometimes calls for subtle branding and apparel that feels like a fashion label created it, not a sportswear company.

After all, the Olympics apparel will live on after the games, in places far from the recipient’s home country.

“Everyone is comparing Olympic kits, and people are always complimenting our Canadian gear and wanting to trade,” Douglas told the New York Times.