Watch Ralph Lauren's Olympic Uniforms Come to Life

From start to finish, they're made in America.

Today, the Olympic Games return in full force, the first games to allow spectators at full capacity since 2016. At the opening ceremony this evening, teams from across the world will parade down the Seine River in Paris, and, for the ninth year, Team USA will be dressed by Ralph Lauren.

Founded under the name Polo in 1968, Ralph Lauren has always drawn inspiration from sport. The brand introduced the eponymous polo shirt to the world in 1972, a garment now synonymous with tennis, golf, and other sportswear. Early advertisements referenced the "spirit of competition," and even the Ralph Lauren logo, featuring a polo player, suggests athleticism. They were a natural choice to be the official outfitter for Team USA, an honor they've held since 2008. "At the Olympics today, Ralph Lauren tells a modern story about the best of sportsmanship," says Ralph Lauren's Chief Branding and Innovation Officer, David Lauren. Previous uniforms have drawn on the brand's all-American ethos, turning out looks that feature blazers, boat shoes, and the most American garment of all: blue jeans.

To get a closer look at the 2024 Team USA opening and closing ceremony uniforms as well as the athletes' village gear, we visited RL headquarters, the New York factory where the clothes are produced, and even traveled to Paris for a day of fittings for our video series, Behind the Seams.

Made in America

From start to finish, the Olympic uniforms are made in America. The design process begins at Ralph Lauren headquarters, fittingly in New York, the U.S. city with the highest concentration of fashion designers. The garments feature wool sourced from Oregon and Colorado and they're produced by Ferrara Manufacturing, a family-owned business based in Long Island City. "It's a piece of America. It's a piece of history. It's a piece of winning spirit," says Lauren. More practically, "It's an amazing opportunity to learn about American manufacturing,"

The Ferrara team has been at work on the uniforms for over a year, producing more than 1,000 in total. For the opening ceremony, athletes will wear a navy blue blazer with red trim, a blue and white striped oxford shirt, light-wash jeans, and white suede buck shoes. The closing ceremony uniforms include a white denim moto-style jacket emblazoned with "USA," a polo shirt, and white jeans. Lauren says the goal was to create clothes that were "comfortable but also fashion forward" and that embodied America's capacity for great tailoring.

"When people think American style, it is that mix between business and casual," says Jamal Hill, a Paralympic swimmer competing this year. "Where else do people put blue denim with a tuxedo top? It's all about taking the best elements of American culture and fashion."

Ralph Lauren also designed the athletes' village gear, which they wear while training and preparing to compete. One such piece is a twist on the iconic Ralph Lauren American flag sweater, featuring the Olympic rings below the signature American flag. "For Paris we really looked at new kinds of fabrications, new kinds of silhouettes, things that felt fun and exciting," says Lauren.

Heritage Craftsmanship Meets Cutting-Edge Technology

At Ferrera, making great clothes requires a combination of traditional methods and modern technologies. In the warehouse, craftsmen inspect each piece of raw material and tag it with a QR code. Fabrics are then put into a spreading machine, which allows them to breathe before being cut. Heavier fabrics like wool require a slower spread and more time to breathe than more lightweight fabrics.

The cutting machine scans the pattern of the fabric and pulls it up on a nearby desktop. Some machines can cut multiple layers of fabric, layered like a croissant. But others are single ply, and used for more complicated textiles. "We cut each plaid and stripe one by one...so that we get an exact match" says Gabrielle Ferrara, chief operating officer of Ferrara Manufacturing. Pieces cut from the same layer travel together throughout the whole process so that garments can be made from the same section of fabric.

Simpler components, like pocket flaps and cuffs, are sewn on by machine. The Ferrara team even produces custom 3D-printed pieces to guide sewing machines in attaching Olympic patches and other components. But "there are certain things that you just can't replace people," Ferrara says. Sewers attach blazer collars and other more complex parts by hand. "We love marrying modern-day technology with maintaining that craft."

After sewing, the garments go through trim application, where buttons and snaps are added, and then pressing. "Blazers, because they have a lot of internal components and seams, actually get pressed throughout production, which makes them one of the most complicated garments to produce," Ferrara explains.

Made to Fit

The final step in the production process is team processing—a fitting with every single athlete competing in the games. Ralph Lauren dresses each of the 592 athletes across all sports, from basketball and gymnastics to swimming and badminton, and has to work closely with each competitor to understand how they like their clothes to fit. "We all have completely different dimensions based on our sports," says Daryl Homer, an Olympic fencer.

The final fittings took place on July 25, the day before the opening ceremonies. "We don't really have room for error here, so we make sure we're precise in everything we do," says Talveer Sehmbi, head tailor for Ralph Lauren for the Olympic and Paralympic games. And it doesn't go unnoticed. Kamren Larsen, an athlete competing on the cycling team, says it was an honor to see "how close attention to detail all the tailors and the whole staff take to make us feel as best as we can."

"We take our jobs very seriously to make our athletes feel as great as they can so they can focus on winning their games," Lauren says. Or, as Hill put it, "Look good, play good."

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