Music and professional competition uniforms are important elements to assist figure skaters to complete their performances, and the competition uniforms are extremely exquisite. The official website of the International Skating Union has specially set up the Best Costume Design Award, which shows the weight of the competition clothes in the figure skating event. February 10,In the men’s single free skating final of the figure skating at the Beijing Winter Olympics, the famous Japanese star Yuzuru Hanyu wore a blue-pink gradient uniform, embellished with rhinestones and gold flowers, and matched with a black-gold girdle, quite Japanese style.
Author: Jiang Shan
Although Yuzuru Hanyu fell on the ground in the quadruple Axel (4A), the defending champion’s dream was shattered, but his Olympic spirit was still highly praised. This is also the first time that 4A has appeared on the referee scoring table of the Winter Olympics. He missed out on the medal in fourth place, but the crowd’s love for him remained undiminished.
Figure skating has long been one of the most popular sports at the Winter Olympics. As an ice sport with both technical challenges and artistic beauty, the audience is always looking forward to what “costume” (meaning competition uniform) the figure skaters will wear this time. For figure skating, music and professional uniforms are important elements to assist players in completing their performances. The official website of the International Skating Union also specially set up the Best Costume Design Award, which shows the weight of “Kosten” in the figure skating project.
Consideration of details
At the Winter Olympics on February 7, Chinese-American Karen Chen helped the U.S. team win the silver medal in the figure skating team competition with the song “Liang Zhu”. Her outfit is adorned with butterfly motifs that echo the theme, a race suit designed and sewed by her mother herself, which transforms her into a purple butterfly on ice. Chen Kaiwen said: “I think I can jump in after I put on this dress.
Designing the competition uniforms for the contestants is a delicate job, in addition to the aesthetics, the designers also have to consider the details of the technical play.
At last month’s U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Chinese-American Nathan Chen, a new champion of the Beijing Winter Olympics men’s singles free skating, appeared on the field wearing a costume with a galaxy pattern. Designed by Chen Wei’s long-time partner, “Queen of Wedding Dresses” Vera Wang, the galaxies above are like flames. When talking about the design concept, Wang Weiwei said: “We discussed the firepower required to launch a rocket into outer space, and I hope he can feel as if he is burning.”
Still, designing the Olympic costumes put extra pressure on Wang Weiwei, because even a loose thread caught on a shoelace or skate could derail the entire show.
Wang Weiwei, who has designed clothing for Michelle Kwan, Nancy Kerrigan and Evan Lysacek, is also a former professional figure skater. In her own athlete days, she observed the rapid evolution of figure skating fashion—the invention of stretch fabrics facilitated the development of triples and quads that she couldn’t achieve when skating in the ’50s and ’60s.
According to Josiane Lamond, a figure skating costume designer, with the advent of quadruple jumps, players are looking for the lightness and flexibility of their uniforms. The weight cannot exceed 500 grams. Two years ago, Swarovski introduced a new crystal that is roughly half the weight, and she now uses the lightweight crystal for her figure-slip decorations.
Athlete’s opinion matters
The design of the competition uniform is not unilaterally completed by the designer, and different players have their own preferences for clothing. According to Wang Weiwei, Kwan Yingshan likes light clothes, while Chen Wei prefers two pieces. These preferences are all tied to a player’s technique and style, and are based on individual needs for temperature control, mobility, and portability.
Generally speaking, the contestants must first determine the music selection, design the movements, and then ask the designer to design the costumes around the show. Competitors’ opinions on clothing are very important, and there are always a lot of ideas about the materials, colors, and presentation that they use, after all, they’re the ones who wear them.
The designer Ito Satomi, who designed the uniforms for Yuzuru Hanyu, once said: “Yuzuru Hanyu is the designer, I’m just his assistant.” Yuzuru Hanyu’s short program and free skating uniforms are all blue tones The gradient color scheme of , and maintains the usual light design, this is not only to set off his “like a flying dragon, graceful like a dragon”, but also closely related to his persistent pursuit of half-jumping all around.
Wang Weiwei also said that Chen Wei was involved a lot in the design of the suits. He prefers undramatic, minimalist designs. For example, he wants a race suit that looks like a suit but wears like a tracksuit. It took Wang Weiwei two weeks to come up with sketches, choosing fabrics that could satisfy both stretch and grace, and finally helped him realize the idea – this is the black and white uniform that Chen Wei wore in the Beijing Winter Olympics short program.
Wang Weiwei felt miserable about designing figure skating uniforms. After completing the task, she told herself countless times that she would never take this job again, but every time she stepped out of her comfort zone to expand her own creativity.
Wang Weiwei once almost qualified for the 1968 Winter Olympics, and now watching the players wear the uniforms she designed to win the championship, it seems that there is a little bit of meaning that she has also entered the Olympic Games in some way. The podium, after all, on the field, the performance of the players is inseparable from the uniforms.
Of course, the high cost of the suit itself also shows this. “Costen” is obviously a contest between beauty and black technology. According to Vogue, the suits, which appear to have few pieces of fabric, cost anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 each. According to the data given by the Gloss website, the average value of each figure skating suit on the Winter Olympics is 3,000 US dollars. Competitors participating in the single event must prepare at least two sets of uniforms, one for the short program and one for the free skating competition.