Olympic Mode, Activated: The Best Winter Games Inspired Menswear
Every four years, the Winter Olympics remind us that athletic competition transcends the physical. It becomes a theater of national identity, where what athletes wear as they process into the stadium carries nearly as much symbolic weight as the medals they hope to bring home. The opening ceremony transforms some 3,000 competitors into walking embodiments of their countries, each delegation dressed by designers tasked with distilling centuries of cultural heritage into garments that must perform under scrutiny from billions of viewers worldwide.
The results have ranged from the triumphant to the peculiar. Lithuania’s 1992 appearance in Barcelona in Issey Miyake’s radical pleated capes, donated free by the designer to the newly independent nation, remains among the most audacious statements ever made on Olympic grounds. Canada’s 1988 Calgary delegation arrived in fringed red trench coats and white cowboy hats, leaning hard into the host city’s Cowtown reputation. Then there’s the eternal question of how much nationalism is too much—how literally a flag should be rendered across a lapel or intarsia knit.
For Team USA, that question has had a consistent answer since 2008, when Ralph Lauren first partnered with the U.S. Olympic Committee for the Beijing Games. The brand’s preppy aesthetic, with navy blazers, white trousers, newsboy caps and rowing-club sensibilities, has become inextricably linked to American Olympic identity. The process begins roughly two and a half years before each Games, with the design team meeting athletes, researching host cities and building garments intended, as David Lauren puts it, to “become timeless.”
Milano Cortina 2026 presents what is perhaps the ultimate test: staging American athletes in one of the world’s undisputed fashion capitals, where sartorial scrutiny reaches its apex. The good news for spectators: many of these official outfitters—Ralph Lauren, Emporio Armani, Le Coq Sportif and others—make civilian versions of their Olympic gear available to the public. What follows is the best of it, from ceremony sweaters to alpine-ready puffers, for anyone who wants to channel the Winter Games from the stands or the sofa.
- Polo Ralph Lauren Team USA Opening Ceremony Sweater
- Emporio Armani Chevron Quilted Down Jacket
- Le Coq Sportif Tricolore Men’s Pants
- Salomon XT-Whisper Nocturne Vision
- Moncler Crachin Reversible Leather-Trimmed Quilted Shell and Shearling Down Jacket
- Ben Sherman Team GB Union Flag Knitted Track Top
- Skims Cotton Poplin Men’s Olympic Boxer
- Adidas Adizero Evo SL H.Koumori Shoes
- Prada Speedrock Leather and Mesh Fabric Sneakers
- Nike Structure Plus Road Running Shoes
- 66°North Logn Longsleeve
- Polo Ralph Lauren Team USA Hawthorne Jacket
Polo Ralph Lauren Team USA Opening Ceremony Sweater
This is the turtleneck Team USA athletes will actually wear, the latest chapter in Ralph Lauren’s Olympic partnership that has defined ceremony style since Beijing 2008. Off the field, it works because it behaves like a proper sweater, not memorabilia. Substantial enough for a cold walk, refined enough for dinner and relaxed enough for a long day spent “just watching one more event.”
Emporio Armani Chevron Quilted Down Jacket
EA7 Emporio Armani is dressing Team Italy for Milano Cortina 2026. This chevron-quilted puffer from the mainline Emporio Armani Essentials collection channels Milanese sensibility without the flag-waving patriotism—water-repellent, properly insulated, with heat-sealed zips for a clean silhouette. The micro-eagle embroidery is considerably subtler than an Olympic rings patch.
Le Coq Sportif Tricolore Men’s Pants
Le Coq Sportif recently unveiled the collection that will dress nearly 200 French athletes, 300 technicians and 350 officials at Milano Cortina. These navy Tricolore trousers—with a signature tricolor braid running down the left leg—channel that same élégance à la française without requiring you to medal in the biathlon. Soft hand, good drape, ribbed hems and drawstring waist for village lounging or après-ski drinks. Allez les Bleus.
Salomon XT-Whisper Nocturne Vision
Salomon is designing uniforms for more than 18,000 Milano Cortina volunteers and workforce members. The French Alps brand, now with former MM6 Maison Margiela designer Heikki Salonen as its first-ever creative director, has perfected what he calls “a desirable balance between performance and subcultural relevance.” These blacked-out trail sneakers, with reflective details that illuminate under flash, channel the same technical-meets-fashion energy that’s made Salomon a gorpcore essential. Built for mountain terrain, but works equally well navigating the après-ski scene.
Moncler Crachin Reversible Leather-Trimmed Quilted Shell and Shearling Down Jacket
Moncler is dressing Team Brazil—a fitting ambassadorship for a house that built its reputation outfitting high-altitude expeditions before pivoting to the slopes of St. Moritz and Gstaad. The reversible Crachin operates on a similar principle of dual identity: quilted shell with leather trim for polished après-ski on one side; flip it for plush shearling that reads pure alpine lodge. Featherlight despite the substantial warmth, it’s the kind of jacket that will turn heads across an entire ski weekend.
Ben Sherman Team GB Union Flag Knitted Track Top
British heritage label Ben Sherman has secured official Team Great Britain licensing for supporters who prefer their patriotism rendered in Mod-inflected knitwear rather than technical fabrics. This wool track top features a jacquard Union Flag in proper Team GB colorways, complete with Olympic branding—a supporter’s version of what British athletes will wear around the Village between events. The zip-neck silhouette and ribbed construction give it a vintage ski-lodge feel that wouldn’t look out of place at a Chamonix après-ski bar circa 1968.
Skims Cotton Poplin Men’s Olympic Boxer
Kim Kardashian’s shapewear empire dressed Olympic and Paralympic athletes in loungewear capsules at Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024—and now it’s back for Milano Cortina. Rather than competing with technical sportswear brands, SKIMS occupies the human space around sport: the rest, the recovery and the hours athletes spend being people rather than competitors. These cotton poplin boxers, covered in all-over Olympic print with Team USA graphics, represent the extension of that philosophy.
Adidas Adizero Evo SL H.Koumori Shoes
Adidas is dressing 12 national teams at Milano Cortina, including Team GB, Germany, Poland, Hungary and Turkey. But beyond official partnerships, the Three Stripes has been building cultural credibility through collaborations like this one with Hermanos Koumori, a Mexico City running imprint founded by Alex León and Alejandro Sandler in 2018. Their take on the Adizero Evo SL—the everyman’s version of Adidas’s marathon-winning Adios Evo Pro super shoe—is a chic update on the flagship iterations that proves sport style transcends borders.
Prada Speedrock Leather and Mesh Fabric Sneakers
Prada just opened its first boutique in Cortina d’Ampezzo: a three-story space on Corso Italia with a terrace overlooking the Dolomites, strategically timed to coincide with the town’s return as an Olympic host for the first time since 1956. The Speedrock sneakers embody what the house describes as dialogue between nature and the city: mesh and leather keep things breathable yet refined, cord details evoke outdoor dynamism without veering into full trail-runner territory. Alpine boot aesthetics filtered through Prada’s intellectual design vocabulary.
Nike Structure Plus Road Running Shoes
Nike is the official technical partner for Team USA’s actual work: pre-dawn training runs, recovery sessions, the unglamorous hours of preparation that precede every televised moment. The Structure Plus represents that ethos—combining Nike’s trusted stability architecture with ZoomX foam, their most responsive cushioning, for the first time. The shoe you’d want, whether preparing for Olympic competition or just maintaining your winter fitness routine, while the Games unfold on your television.
66°North Logn Longsleeve
For Team Iceland, there was only one contender. The century-old Reykjavík label—founded in 1926 to outfit fishermen for North Atlantic conditions—brings a distinctly Nordic sensibility to Milano Cortina, contrasting sharply with the fashion-house partnerships elsewhere. This long sleeve embodies that ethos: organic double-jersey cotton, relaxed unisex fit, garment-dyed for the kind of weathered authenticity you can’t fake. The antithesis of flag-waving patriotic gear, built to layer under technical shells or stand alone for après-ski drinks.
Polo Ralph Lauren Team USA Hawthorne Jacket
The everyman’s interpretation of the Closing Ceremony puffer, rendered in bright green rather than the patriotic red-white-blue athletes will sport in Verona. Water-repellent ripstop, 750-fill down, official U.S. Olympic Team logo alongside Ralph Lauren’s embroidered Pony. The athlete version goes bolder with vintage ski racing inspiration, color-blocked styling and Team USA graphics everywhere. This one just says you have gold-medal taste.