Meet the Olympic Uniform Designers Who Won Over the Internet

The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris are set to kick off on Friday, but the internet has already dubbed Team Mongolia its winner—not for the nation’s sporting prowess, but for its striking Opening Ceremony uniforms. 

When images of this year’s uniforms began circulating online last week, social media users and fashion publications lauded Mongolia’s ensemble, with athletes wearing a crisp shirt and vest with trousers or a pleated skirt, and flag bearers wearing a tunic taking inspiration from Mongolia’s native deel. The show-stopping detail? Intricate gold embroidery depicting motifs of Mongolia’s heritage and relationship to the games. The costumes were designed by Michel & Amazonka, a sister-run Ulaanbaatar-based label that has since been catapulted into the spotlight.

“We are still shocked. We didn't expect that the world would receive it this way,” says Munkhjargal Choigaalaa, CEO at Michel & Amazonka.

Michel & Amazonka is not the only smaller design house generating buzz online, Team Haiti and Team Czech Republic, which competes in the Olympics under the name Czechia, have also been celebrated for their uniforms, designed by Stella Jean’s eponymous brand and Jan Černý’s JAN SOCIÉTÉ, respectively. Their uniforms stood out as designs that break from typical sportswear with more fashion-forward garments and striking craftsmanship. They broke through even compared to designs from global fashion giants with larger budgets and greater resources, including Ralph Lauren for the United States' team, Emporio Armani for Italy, and Berluti, a brand under the LVMH umbrella, for France.

In the future, Černý of the Czech Republic hopes that even larger nations will consider choosing smaller brands to design their uniforms to showcase local talent. Amazonka Choigaalaa of Mongolia hopes more designers will dress their athletes in their country’s traditional garments. And Stella Jean of Haiti wants everyone watching on Friday to know that “creativity has no border, it’s a global passport.” 

If there’s one thing all three designers agree on, it’s that the Olympics Opening Ceremony is the biggest catwalk in the world—and everyone will be watching.  

Michel & Amazonka had only three months to design the Mongolian uniform

The fashion house—which debuted its first collection in 2013 during Ulaanbaatar Fashion Week and officially launched in 2015—was not supposed to design the 2024 uniform. They had previously created uniforms for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympics, but another designer was hired for this year. But when that designer canceled at the last minute, Michel & Amazonka were brought in with very little time.

“We had only three months to do 120 sets of uniforms,” says Munkhjargal Choigaalaa. It took a team of 42 people to pull it together, sourcing materials, embroidering, and sewing in the narrow time frame.

The designers took inspiration from elements of Mongolian tradition, landscape, and history. The flagbearers’ deels are similar to the national costume worn during the Naadam festival, Mongolia’s own sporting event focused on horseracing, wrestling, and archery. The embroidery motifs on each athlete’s vest include the Nine White Banners—which are typically brought into the stadium during Naadam—mountains and clouds depicting Mongolia’s landscapes and birds, and the Olympic torch. 

While the design team felt the pressure to represent their nation, particularly in Paris, a fashion capital of the world, they ultimately want the athletes to feel good in their clothes. “These guys are the best boys and girls that are representing our country and we wanted them to be comfortable in our design and look beautiful,” says Munkhjargal. 

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Team Haiti’s uniforms are "a tool of counter colonization"

Stella Jean says she created uniforms on a humble budget for Team Haiti, one of the smallest delegations in the Olympics with just seven athletes. 

“When the General Secretary of the Haitian Olympic Committee called, it wasn't just a call, it was a call to arms—with no hostility,” says Jean. “No wasn’t an answer.” 

The look takes its white, red, and blue hues from the Haitian flag, with the men’s uniform consisting of a light blue jacket, an adaptation of the guayabera shirt worn by men in the Caribbean, vibrant trousers channeling Naïve folk art, and a Fular scarf. The women’s look features a skirt in the same material, paired with a light blue shirt and structured jacket with a cinched waist. Philippe Dodard, an acclaimed Haitian painter, designed the fabric for the trousers and skirt. 

Wearing these uniforms at the Paris Olympics takes on an even deeper meaning for Haiti, once known as Saint-Domingue, a French colony that fought for its independence during the Haitian Revolution, the first successful resistance movement led by enslaved people against the French colonial regime from 1971 to 1804. “It’s hugely symbolic,” says Jean, who is Haitian-Italian, adding that she merged Haitian fabrics and motifs with Western silhouettes as “a tool of counter colonization.”

Read More: Why France Is Banning the Hijab for Their Olympic Athletes

Jean ran into some issues as she worked to create her designs. Export embargoes in Haiti made sourcing chambray, a cotton-like material, for the women’s shirt difficult. “I used one of my dresses that my grandmother gave to me, because we were not able to source it otherwise. I hope she will forgive me because she's not here anymore,” Jean says, joking that her design unintentionally became more sustainable.  

Throughout the process, she recognized the rare opportunity to present the world with a positive news story about Haiti, as the country struggles with a recent history of political violence, coups, and the deadly 2020 earthquake. Ongoing violence at the hands of armed gangs has displaced approximately 580,000 people, per U.N. figures.  

“Haiti has no materials now. We have nothing to sell to the world. Our strength right now is this intangible richness [from] our deep culture,” Jean says. “We are here, we are joyful, and we will be back on our own two feet again.” 

Team Czech Republic’s high-fashion uniform represents small nations on the world stage

In 2019, Jan Černý was interning in Paris for the late Virgil Abloh’s Louis Vuitton. This year, the Czech designer is returning to the city as an Olympic uniform designer for his home nation. 

“The main drive for me was to create something for Paris, and for the whole world, to see how to be relevant as a small country,” Černý says. 

The uniform is a collaboration between his formerly eponymous label—which launched in 2016 and rebranded to JAN SOCIÉTÉ in 2023—and Czech sportswear brand Alpine Pro, a long-standing Olympics partner. The team is dressing 275 people this year across the Olympics and Paralympics with a genderless design for all delegates.

The base outfit consists of a red, blue, and white polo shirt with a spray-paint effect, and navy trousers; the hues are variations of the colors in the Czech Republic’s national flag and they resemble vintage Czech uniforms. The polo is knitted from cooling yarn to keep athletes comfortable in the Parisian summer, Černý says.

The most striking component of the look is a lightweight sports coat, made from Japanese nylon, which nods to the Czech baloňák and the French trench coat, Černý says. The white coat features an inky blue Rorschach print, inspired by the late Czech artist Vladimír Boudník, who would be turning 100 this year. 

Černý decided on the coat after remembering the Seine’s windy riverside, and how it can make fabric dance. “In the 10 seconds of camera time that we have during the Opening Ceremony, if there’s going to be movement from the wind, that would be the most beautiful thing,” Černý says. 

Černý says that Czech society has been divided about his designs: “There’s a lot of people who love it and a lot of people who hate it.” But as Černý’s work made its way into TikTok round ups of the best 2024 uniforms, he noticed a change. “It is typical Czech behavior,” he jokes. “We don't really believe in ourselves, and we need approval from somebody to believe it.”