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What is going on with Canada?
First, they are handling this virus like they were in Europe or something and then this
If this doesn't cause Japan to postpone the Olympics, nothing will.
19 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
strikes again.
Team USA’s Olympics Outfits Are Out. Yeesh.
https://slate.com/culture/2021/04/olympics-outfits-usa-tokyo-ralph-lauren-again.html
On Wednesday, Ralph Lauren released the first images of its 2021 U.S. Olympic team uniforms. The outfits, which the athletes will wear at the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Games, include white jeans, white polo shirts, and white windbreakers—the perfect canvas for an embarrassing, all-American dribble of barbecue sauce on a hot summer’s day.
Ralph Lauren has been making Team USA’s opening and closing ceremony uniforms since 2008. Usually, the outfits make news for their more flamboyant elements. The company has made ugly sweatersTM for multiple Winter Olympics, most notably a shawl-collared cardigan in 2014. There have been berets, newsboy caps, and striped shirts that echoed the Russian flag. But mostly, the uniforms have followed a predictable pattern: cozy chalet wear for winter, preppy dockside garb for summer. The assignment has always been Americana, and Ralph Lauren’s interpretation has always been aggressively WASPy. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when you’re a Ralph Lauren designer, one imagines, every human body looks like it needs a polo shirt.
Though this year’s uniform does make the athlete-models look like they’re about to vote for Obama a third time or call the cops on an unpermitted lemonade stand, compared with Ralph Lauren’s previous entries in the category, the 2021 garb is rather boring. The white denim is plain. The windbreakers look cheap, and their cinched waists, which are usually reserved for the “ladies” cut of outerwear, will make even the country’s most muscular bodies look frumpy. The D-ring belts (the D stands for douchebag) are self-plagiarized from the ones that accompanied the uniform in 2016.
I can’t fully blame Ralph Lauren for its wearisome repetition of yuppie stereotypes. Trend-agnostic polo shirts, button-downs, and tailored denim are what the company knows best, and it’s surely what the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee expects when they hire the brand for this project. That committee is the real villain here, because it’s long past time to give a different, more visionary designer a turn. (Marc Jacobs knows how to make punchy track jackets, and Telfar has a history of just-avant-garde-enough pants.) But also, couldn’t Ralph Lauren have devoted a little more creative energy to a contract as lucrative and visible as this one, rather than handing in a slightly more patriotic copy of the clothes it already makes for its everyday consumers? The one-year delay the pandemic imposed on the Olympics even gave the company an extra year to figure out something bolder. Yeah, yeah, we were all supposed to give ourselves a break on productivity expectations during the crisis, but these designers could have spent a little less time on their sourdough loaves and a little more time thinking beyond the popped collar.
snip
Link to tweet
Team USA’s Olympics Outfits Are Out. Yeesh.
https://slate.com/culture/2021/04/olympics-outfits-usa-tokyo-ralph-lauren-again.html
On Wednesday, Ralph Lauren released the first images of its 2021 U.S. Olympic team uniforms. The outfits, which the athletes will wear at the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Games, include white jeans, white polo shirts, and white windbreakers—the perfect canvas for an embarrassing, all-American dribble of barbecue sauce on a hot summer’s day.
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
Ralph Lauren has been making Team USA’s opening and closing ceremony uniforms since 2008. Usually, the outfits make news for their more flamboyant elements. The company has made ugly sweatersTM for multiple Winter Olympics, most notably a shawl-collared cardigan in 2014. There have been berets, newsboy caps, and striped shirts that echoed the Russian flag. But mostly, the uniforms have followed a predictable pattern: cozy chalet wear for winter, preppy dockside garb for summer. The assignment has always been Americana, and Ralph Lauren’s interpretation has always been aggressively WASPy. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when you’re a Ralph Lauren designer, one imagines, every human body looks like it needs a polo shirt.
Though this year’s uniform does make the athlete-models look like they’re about to vote for Obama a third time or call the cops on an unpermitted lemonade stand, compared with Ralph Lauren’s previous entries in the category, the 2021 garb is rather boring. The white denim is plain. The windbreakers look cheap, and their cinched waists, which are usually reserved for the “ladies” cut of outerwear, will make even the country’s most muscular bodies look frumpy. The D-ring belts (the D stands for douchebag) are self-plagiarized from the ones that accompanied the uniform in 2016.
I can’t fully blame Ralph Lauren for its wearisome repetition of yuppie stereotypes. Trend-agnostic polo shirts, button-downs, and tailored denim are what the company knows best, and it’s surely what the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee expects when they hire the brand for this project. That committee is the real villain here, because it’s long past time to give a different, more visionary designer a turn. (Marc Jacobs knows how to make punchy track jackets, and Telfar has a history of just-avant-garde-enough pants.) But also, couldn’t Ralph Lauren have devoted a little more creative energy to a contract as lucrative and visible as this one, rather than handing in a slightly more patriotic copy of the clothes it already makes for its everyday consumers? The one-year delay the pandemic imposed on the Olympics even gave the company an extra year to figure out something bolder. Yeah, yeah, we were all supposed to give ourselves a break on productivity expectations during the crisis, but these designers could have spent a little less time on their sourdough loaves and a little more time thinking beyond the popped collar.
snip
Shiny.
What's the fuss? 
