The Fashion Sinkhole

Manolo says, this story it is not the surprise to the Manolo.

If any discipline at the Winter Olympics had the potential to provide a platform from which to showcase the marriage of high style and high function, it would seem to be figure skating. Yet the glossy ice pond in Turin is a fashion sinkhole, as even the occupationally chirpy talking heads are aware. “Figure skating can have some pretty frightening costumes,” Sandra Bezic, a skating commentator on NBC’s team at Turino, said Tuesday night.

The problem is not the proliferation of “illusion” effects, in which parts are cut from costumes to suggest nakedness, the transparent sections replaced with tan Lycra. It is not that the costumers seem to have staggered off a Mardi Gras parade. It is not that a plague of two-tone or tone-on-tone velvets or random zippers or Chippendale’s tear-away effects or even rhinestones applied in shotgun pattern to every surface has swept the ice rinks. It is not even that bad is so opulently “Showgirls” bad that it can be read as ironic, hence “good.”

The problem is worse. It is that the kitsch that extends to everything from the grim expressionist ballet in the opening ceremony to the Old Glory bandannas to the fieldstone fireplace lighted with licking plastic flames on the NBC set has infiltrated consciousness so fully that it has become a denominator, the one authentically democratic aspect of the Games.

Of the course, the fans of the Project Runway know that the designing the costume for the skating it is not easy. Especially since the ice skating it is so elegant.

Comments

Tammy 19 years ago

I was most horrified by the snowboarding for some reason. (I kind expect wacky costumes for skaters.) I guess baggy is in for the hip-hop crowd, but it often looked like they were about to lose their drawers. Plus, I think you can be baggy and still a little stylish. Pin stripes? How original – not! They looked like prison uniforms for bulimics.

Patricia 19 years ago

We were watching the figure skating last night, the costumes the competetors wore were more than bad.
Even my husband, and he never says anything about what people are wearing, said, “what are these people thinking!”
With all the money that must be involved with the Olympics you would think someone somewhere would think about style!

Moi ;) 19 years ago

I was thinking the snowboarders’ outfits looked like the Phillies’ uniforms….with baggy pants….

MK 19 years ago

Oposite to everything else, the Bulgarian Ice Skatin couple had very stylish costumes, we will see tonight whats the situation with the free performance.

Annalucia 19 years ago

The ice skating, it appears to be the outdoor winter equivalent of the Lindy Hopping, and it is no doubt a great challenge to be both vigorously athletic and graceful. The Annalucia suggests the swing-dance costumes (shirt and trousers for the gentleman, knee-length skirt with a lot of swirl for the lady) for the ice skaters, changing only the footwear.

And what is “Turino”? Cannot the supposedly worldly and sophisticated New York Times not give the town its proper name? “Torino” if they wish to speak Italian; “Turin” if English.

The Barb 19 years ago

Heh. I noticed the “Turino,” too. Good job, NYT editors…

Big Red 19 years ago

Moi;)

Great minds think alike, although the snowboard rats initially remined me of the Baseball Furies (a la “The Warriors”) with baggy pants. Fromage of a different flavor, n’est-ce pas?

camille 19 years ago

My first thought upon seeing the hideously peach outfits of the Italian team was, where is Giorgio Armani’s national pride? Where is the Dolce? the Gabbana?

The costumes looked as if they were designed by the orangesicle who’s had too much of the plastic surgery.

The Discriminating Omnivore 19 years ago

The Manolo,

After reading this entry, I could not but help thinking of you during the ice dancing competition the other night when the Russian team came out wearing sky blue leopard print in tatters. I was surprised to see you leave that one alone!

Perhaps they were awarded the gold for being brave enough to feature that outfit.

-The Discriminating Omnivore

Miss Tanya 19 years ago

Oh Manolo, please take some time to note the horrors of the Olympic Cheerleaders.

http://news.yahoo.com/photo/060219/483/olypo11802191935&g=events/sp/011106olympics;_ylt=AhPiR_N9AATk5qCLVd0HphWSFs0F;_ylu=X3oDMTA3bGk2OHYzBHNlYwN0bXA-

indulgencio 19 years ago

the manolo is too tough on the host country. surely even opening ceremonial kitsch beats the shrouds at turin? they are italians! Exuberate with them!

misskelley 19 years ago

I thought the snowboarders were wearing their jammies.

The bobsled and luge people are all wearing Spiderman costumes.

The American speed skaters look OK, not very inspired (navy and gray), but clean and simple and not garish, for a change of pace.

The Charlotte Allen 19 years ago

The solo female figure skaters were outfitted (with some blatant exceptions) much more tastefully than the couples dancers. Sasha Cohen’s costume, for example, was a shade garish but basically very pretty and flattering. And the Swiss contestant’s dress (can’t remember her name) was quite tasteful indeed.

So what’s with the couples? Why do the girls all look like extras from “Showgirls”?

lindenen 19 years ago

Not Showgirls so much as Versace catwalkers.

And blech for the female speed-skaters! Some of them were actually quite pretty once they removed their awful hats. Surely you don’t have to wear appalling stuff in order to skate fast!