From Chamonix to Beijing, from 1924 to 2022 spanning a hundred years, Winter Olympic clothing has also "grown" together, from the initial simple cold and warmth, lack of protection, to now not only fashionable and comfortable, but also more technological and cultural empowerment.
In recent years, with China's vigorous promotion of the development of ice and snow sports, China has achieved many breakthroughs in the manufacturing and research and development of winter sports equipment, and all kinds of clothing at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics not only let the world feel the charm of Chinese culture again, but also a stunning appearance of China's winter sports equipment independent research and development results.
Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games awards gowns.
Ice blossoms
There are three series of awards dresses for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, named "Ruixue Xiangyun", "Hongyun Shanshui" and "Tanghua Feixue", which are used in snow venues, ice venues and award squares respectively.
The dress brings together Chinese landscapes, Hanfu, embroidery and other representative elements of traditional Chinese culture. "Ruixue Xiangyun" takes "Ruixue" and "Xiangyun" as the theme of two traditional Chinese auspicious symbols, "Hongyun Shanshui" takes the famous Chinese painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" as the inspiration source, and "Tang Hua Feixue" extracts and simplifies the Baoxiang pattern and snowflake pattern, combined with the light pattern in the core graphic of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The minimum temperature in the Winter Olympic Awards Plaza can reach minus 30 degrees Celsius. Under the premise of ensuring the beauty of the costume, how to do a good job in keeping the award ceremony personnel warm, which brings a lot of challenges to the production of the award costume. After a series of designs and discussions, in the end, polyimide fiber, a material applied to aerospace engineering, became the material for the production of clothing, and finally the award ceremony dress could vividly display the beauty of the fusion of classical and modern on the stage of the Winter Olympics.
Super protection
In the winter Olympics, which is racing against the clock, athletes must pursue perfection in all aspects, and a suitable set of "battle robes" will become the "strongest auxiliary" for athletes on the field.
Zhao Xiaosong, a reporter for the Winter Olympics, and Gan Nan, photographed by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Winter Olympics
Sliding on high-speed ice requires resistance against air resistance equivalent to more than a dozen winds, and if you want to be faster, you must reduce the resistance. At the end of 2019, in order to provide athletes with equipment that is more in line with their own characteristics and prepare for the Beijing Winter Olympics, the National Winter Sports Clothing and Equipment Research and Development Center was officially established in a small building of the Beijing Institute of Fashion. The development of a competition uniform involves knowledge of textiles, clothing design, mechanical engineering, biomechanics, sports and other disciplines. The staff raced against time, and in just three years, they went from being unfamiliar with the field to coming up with the best results.
The winter Olympics steel frame snowmobile, speed skating and other sports competition equipment application of a number of resistance reduction and resistance reduction, waterproof and moisture-permeable technology, and the use of 3D printing technology to model athletes, so that the cut of clothing more suitable for athletes in sports posture, to achieve real tailor-made.
Drag reduction alone is not enough for a professional race dress, and short track speed skaters are at risk of being cut by an ice knife when they collide during competitions. Therefore, while ensuring the effect of reducing resistance, it is also necessary to provide sufficient protection for athletes. The R&D team referenced more than 100 fabrics from around the world and successfully developed an anti-cutting fabric. The Short Track Speed Skating Race Suit of the Winter Olympics uses the latest 360-degree full-body anti-cutting technology, and the anti-cutting strength is 15 times that of steel wire. In addition, the Winter Olympics uniforms also take into account the warmth and beauty, and the Olympic athletes will wear the "battle robes" made in China and gallop on the field.
Highlight moments
Playing the national anthem and climbing the podium is the highlight moment that belongs to Chinese athletes, and it is also the highlight moment that belongs to the medalwear on Chinese athletes.
The designer of the medal dress, the famous designer of Hong Kong, China, Ye Jintian, said that the chinese delegation's medal dress at the Beijing Winter Olympics was inspired by the traditional Chinese cultural conception and the Chinese character "Zhong", and the medal dress is a window to express Chinese culture, so it is necessary to contain Chinese elements, but at the same time it must be simple, concise, and can enhance the spirit, and the design of the round standing collar plus a word disc buckle just meets this requirement. The clear red lines symbolize the "central axis", implying that partners from all over the world gather in China, highlighting the good wishes of the host and friends around the world to "go to the future together".
In addition to showing traditional Chinese culture, the medalwear also incorporates a large number of scientific and technological elements. The beijing winter olympics medallion is divided into indoor and outdoor two types. Among them, the indoor medalwear of the ice project takes into account both light weight and warmth, which not only ensures that the clothing is straight, but also can keep warm for Chinese athletes. For snow projects with lower outdoor temperatures, the outdoor medal gown uses heat storage and warm cotton material, and uses waterproof and moisture permeable technology to achieve windproof and warm functions. The winning shoes feature nitrogen technology and carbon plate support embedded in the arch of the foot, combined with a convenient BOA lace-up system, which combines comfort and convenience.
Double Olympic heritage
The volunteers, staff and technical officials who are active inside and outside the stadium, staff and technical officials who are fully prepared for the Winter Olympic Games, and the uniforms they wear have become a bright color of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The uniform perfectly integrates traditional Chinese landscape painting with the core graphic of the Winter Olympics, "Mountain Shape of the Competition Area", and skillfully integrates traditional aesthetics and ice and snow sports through brushstrokes with the charm of Chinese ink painting, thick and thin lines, and virtual and real layers near and far.
The calm ink color and the pulsating Xiaguang red show the hard work and enthusiasm of the staff, the neutral Great Wall gray highlights the objectivity and impartiality of the technical officials, the bright Tianji blue shows the youth vitality of the volunteers, and the pure Ruixue snow white symbolizes the "Ruixue Mega Year" as a harmonious color.
Since 2019, the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee has set up a uniform equipment expert committee, relying on the Beijing Institute of Fashion and Anta Company to set up a "uniform equipment research and development laboratory", and continuously research and development in terms of fabrics, structures, processes, etc., to complete the sample clothing test. The visual design scheme of uniform equipment is carefully selected from more than 10,000 works of 602 sets from home and abroad.
He Yang of the Beijing Institute of Fashion, the designer of the final plan of the Winter Olympic uniforms, is also the uniform designer of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. He Yang said that from the Summer Olympics to the Winter Olympics, the design principles of the Olympic uniforms are in the same vein, such as the gray ink imagery of the winter Olympic uniform tops, which originates from the Great Wall gray in the winter Olympic colors, and the Great Wall gray is extended from the color of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, connecting the Beijing Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics, reflecting the style of the "City of The Two Olympics".
However, the design of the Winter Olympic uniforms should make technological breakthroughs and conceptual innovations according to the characteristics of the winter events. Lightweight, warm, beautiful and comfortable is the meaning of the development of winter Olympic uniforms, and in order to achieve these, it is necessary to innovate science and technology and apply details. The Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee gives full play to the role of professional forces and professional institutions, promotes the application of new materials, new processes and new technologies, and enhances the functional protection role of uniforms and equipment. During the race, the uniforms are from scratch, from the plan to the physical sample, from the sample to the production of large goods, each step is constantly colliding, adjusting and optimizing. In the end, the seemingly contradictory words "windproof, breathable, warm, and lightweight" are all reflected in a set of clothing.
For more information, stay tuned to the Winter Olympics.
Source Client The Winter Olympics | Reporter Zhao Xiaosong Lu Yijia
Editor: Han Ye
Process Editor Tai Shaofeng