Weekend Edition #19: Gold Medal Looks

Drumroll, please! My Olympics Best Dressed Award goes to...

The 1992 Lithuanian Team!

Huh?

Hi!

Yes, you read that right.

There is no doubt that these Olympic Games have been serving. Gold medal performances, a new iconic athlete every day, looks upon looks. The content has been delicious, and social media has felt positive and inspiring, a feast for the senses, in ways it hasn’t in a really, really long time. If ever.

Every day I discover a new superstar. I mentioned Yeji and Ilona last week. (Ilona’s Instagram post today: “Thank goodness I packed every outfit I own so I could throw fits for you constantly.” This, after winning a bronze medal in rugby. She’s a goddess.) This week there’s two-time Olympic medalist (in my old event, the pole vault) Katie Moon shouting out her traps (to Ilona), the U.S Women’s new soccer superstars (Sophie Smith, Trinity Rodman, and Mallory Swanson, who asked to be nicknamed ‘Triple Espresso,’ after their overtime win against German), Sha’carri and her silver medal and her nails, Gabby Thomas and her gold medal and her Masters of Public Health. And so many more. In fact, to me, these feel like the first Games where female athletes have burst out of our screens and into the cultural spotlight in ways that had previously been reserved for male athletes. They’ve done it by seizing their moments, celebrating their accomplishments, and being authentically themselves. I’m obsessed. Everyone watches women’s sports. It feels like the future has finally arrived.

But the other day I rediscovered an old superstar. And I knew I had found my topic for the week.

Issey Miyake was an iconic Japanese designer who towered over the last fifty years of fashion. He died in 2022, leaving behind a legacy of unbelievable style, innovation, craftsmanship, an ongoing collection and way of dressing called “Pleats, Please,” and a fashion and design studio that spawned myriad other incredible Japanese designers.

He also designed the 1992 Lithuanian Olympic Team’s official uniforms, despite having no connection to Lithuania.

Lithuania originally declared independence in 1918 but had been a part of the Soviet Union since 1944. They became the first country to break away and restore their independence in 1990, and in 1992, at the Barcelona Summer Games, their Olympic team would be competing as a nation for the first time in 64 years.¹ Their Los Angeles-based team doctor, Dr. Edward Domanskis, wanted to help the team make a statement through their uniforms and reached out to his favorite designer: Issey Miyake.²

Miyake agreed but wrestled with the project. He needed to figure out how to design a cohesive and imaginative look that would work for a wide range of bodies (a challenge that still plagues many designers and brands today, with many unfortunately not even bothering to engage with it), and he finally resolved this problem through the technological innovation of his pleated fabric.

Using rich, bold colors, large impactful graphics, and a flowing shape that transformed from a hood to a cape, Miyake created stunning looks and a bold declarative message for the Lithuanian athletes: All eyes on us. Watch us win.

The Lithuanian team’s fashion cred doesn’t stop there. Lithuania had a rich vein of highly talented basketball players and their national team was eager to show their stuff on the world stage under their flag. But they had no money. The NBA Golden State Warriors had successfully drafted a Lithuanian player, Sarunas Marciulionis, a few years earlier (previously Moscow hadn’t allowed Soviet players to play in the U.S.) and now Marciulionis and his assistant coach tried some grassroots fundraising in the Bay Area. They struck gold when a local sports writer, George Shirk, wrote about them in the San Francisco Chronicle. None other than Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and the other members of The Grateful Dead(!!) saw the article, sympathized with Lithuania’s push for independence and the team’s plight, and decided to help them out.

The band donated a large sum of money but also had their designer send the players tie-dyed T-shirts in Lithuania’s national colors - red, yellow, and green. The shirts featured an image of a skeleton dunking a basketball, and the Lithuanian team received their bronze medals in head-to-toe tie-dye. The player and the shirts became instant sensations.³

Can you even imagine? What a grand (re)entrance onto the world stage! Amazing athletic achievements and not one but TWO major fashion moments. The little country that could. Fashion rocks.

Real quick back to Miyake before I let you go. Along with all of his other fashion accomplishments, he designed another iconic 20th-century look. But this one was the total opposite of those dramatic uniforms. Miyake was the man responsible for Steve Jobs’ black turtlenecks. Jobs originally commissioned uniforms for his employees like Miyake had designed for Sony, but when Apple’s employees refused to wear uniforms, Jobs instead adopted one for himself.⁴

And Miyake’s design vision continues. His pleated tote bag is currently all over the fashion substack interwebs being hailed for its stylish and practical design and its ability to hold its shape through wash and wear. If you’d like to have a piece of fashion history (and just a really good bag), you can buy it in one of twelve colors from MOMA’s website. Otherwise, it looks like you have to travel to Japan. Good excuse!

Miyake believed that fashion was both an instrument of beauty and a utilitarian tool and his vision and talent helped color the world. In March 1992 he was quoted in the International Herald Tribune as saying "Design is not for philosophy—it's for life."⁵

As you may have picked up on, over the last almost twenty dispatches, that’s why I love fashion too. Creating visual delight and physical function within the parameters of the body and our planet is a never-ending creative pursuit. It is infinitely inspiring. Fashion matters, whether it’s a remarkable uniform for a reborn nation or a boring shirt for one of the most imaginative humans who ever lived.

I’m going to miss these games so much. But you know what? Guess who is hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics. MILAN. The fashion gods are smiling upon us. I can’t wait.

x Lindsay

Lithuania's 1992 Olympic Opening Ceremony Outfit designed by Issey Miyake. The pleated fabric was Miyake's technological innovation, and he designed the hood to unzip and unfurl into a cape, revealing the country and its flag. Photography by Troy Word for Arena Magazine, 1992

Video from @myclothingarchive

Steve Jobs in Issey Miyake (William Stevens/Gamma-Rapho, via NY Time), and Miyake with his Olympic Uniform (via https://www.instagram.com/myclothingarchive)

The 1992 Lithuanian Men’s Basketball Team accepting their bronze medal in their Grateful Dead tie-dye T-Shirts and “matching” tie-dye shorts.

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2. https://www.archivepdf.net/arena-magazine-total-sport-featuring-issey-miyake-1992#:~:text=Issey%20Miyake%20designed%20the%20Lithuanian,their%20path%20crossed%20by%20accident.

3. https://www.sportshistoryweekly.com/stories/lithuania-basketball-olympics-nba-grateful-dead,1100#google_vignette

4. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/10/style/issey-miyake-steve-jobs-black-turtleneck.html

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issey_Miyake#cite_note-13