I’m told Ralph Lauren designed the Team USA outfits. He’s 75 now and these are beyond hideous, so maybe it was a great-grandchild with a big box of crayons who actually did the designs.
There are 3 elements in design: color, texture and pattern. Good design keeps one or two of these simple, while providing interest by varying one or two of the others.
Vary three out of three and you’ve just got an ugly mess.
COLOR: The red, white and blue color is one.
TEXTURE: The bulky knitting and heavy collar is two.
PATTERN: The busy stars, stripes and words is three.
These sweaters also violate the most basic rule of good clothing design, which is it should never draw attention to itself (or the designer, sheesh), but FLATTER the WEARER. Those way-too-many-stars drag your eyes DOWN to the athletes hips and buttocks, not UP to their faces. Compare how the Andorran sweaters beautifully frame the athlete’s FACES.
I wish Ralph could have stopped committing design sins there, but he went ON and put his own logo prominently on the lapel (seriously?), then used smooth, machine-perfect embroidery for the USA Olympics part, then added clunky BLANKET STITCHED (with white no less) KNITTED flag patches on TOP of what are already bulky sweaters.
These sweaters remind me of the outfits my daughter used to create out of the dress up box when she was seven. Somewhere between the dress up box and becoming the stylist for Team USA, one should have learned that more is not more.
polination.blog 
It looked like the USA athletes thought they were attending an ‘Ugly Sweater Contest’ instead of an Olympic opening ceremony. I kept trying to figure out if they were being ‘hipster ironic’ or if someone actually thought this was a good idea. Ralph Lauren’s Polo designs are usually classic and ton-y English-looking. This just looks like Lauren rounded up a bunch of talented grannies and told them to come up with something their grandkids would be embarrassed to wear.
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My first reaction was yuck, then I thought, hmmm, maybe campy and fun, then I really looked at the photo I posted and realized what an utter MESS the design was. Plus, really, POLO prominent on the lapel? That’s like Obama posting photos of himself for every “tribute” he does. Sheesh.
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I vote all Team USA members have a post-Olympics bonfire party to dispose of the hideous things.
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Amen to that, Chrissy. They could have a weenie roast and toast marshmallows over the fire, while sticking pins in a voodoo doll of Ralph Lauren.
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