As athletes from more than 200 countries prepare to gather tonight for the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony on the river Seine in Paris, all eyes – an estimated 1.5 billion viewers – were on the global superstars and the spectacular fusion of sport and fashion on display in the City of Light. International big fashion names supporting their countries included Ralph Lauren for the US team, Lululemon for Canada, Ben Sherman for Britain, Uniqlo for Sweden, Adidas for Germany, Armani for Italy and Berluti (in association with Carine Roitfeld, former editor-in-chief of Paris Vogue) for France. Uniforms varied in colour, spirit and style from tuxedos, blazers and white shirts to tracksuits, carpenter pants, sunray pleats, trainers and high heels.
The event has propelled the Manhattan-based designer Laura Weber, originally from Rathfarnham in Dublin, and the woman behind the Irish Olympics team’s parade uniforms, firmly into the international spotlight. A small sole trader among titans, she has had to face the huge challenge of outfitting more than 120 Irish athletes, from boxers and cyclists to sailors and showjumpers.
To give some idea of the task, each uniform involved 156 hours of sewing and embroidery for each athlete, and 42 people were involved in the creations, including in embroidery design, grading, patterning, stitching and production. Every athlete received six pieces of kit – two jackets (one in green for the closing ceremony), trousers, knit top, bag and trainers. In all, the collection amounted to about 2,000 items, and Weber recalls doing 180 fittings in one week.
The design, a cultural signifier to reflect Irish identity, unity and Olympic history, was primarily in white. “I didn’t want to be predictable – I wanted to give a sense of what we are now, a modern Ireland as well as being a nod to the games more than 100 years ago, which were all in white,” says Weber, who also designed navy suiting and green dresses for Olympic Federation of Ireland executives, along with pleated skirts and blouses for hospitality staff.
Embroidery, for which Weber and her LW Pearl brand is well known, figured significantly and often discreetly. County crests and emblems were redesigned and embroidered on each jacket, with four shamrocks representing the four provinces of Ireland, while the name of each athlete was embroidered on the inside of the jacket, making it a personal and bespoke memento.
Working on the initial designs for three years, Weber discovered from discussions with a representative group of Olympic athletes that their main concern was comfort. So, the suit fabric chosen is a sustainable, lightweight eco-hybrid taffeta made using recycled T-shirts and plastic bottles, and the jackets were designed with a nontraditional back vent for breathability, which she describes as “a sailing/yachting approach”.
The trousers are embellished with an Olympic/shamrock crest, and the Tricolour features subtly on the side piping. The green closing ceremony jacket with star shaped strapping (to frame a medal) was inspired by the jacket worn by Sonia O’Sullivan when she received her silver medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Weber is not the first Irish fashion designer to be associated with the Olympics. In 2008, with Olympic team sponsors Penneys, John Rocha designed wool suits hand painted with Celtic motifs and worn with silk ties. Four years earlier Paul Costelloe was invited to design the formal parade uniforms for the Irish team at the summer Olympics in Athens in 2004 in navy, green and taupe.
“The Olympic uniforms are a story I wanted to tell for Ireland,” says Weber. “Clothes change how you feel, and I wanted to make the best for our athletes. I am so proud to represent and interpret Ireland’s identity on a global stage”.
Weber is a keen sportswoman herself, who played hockey at school for the Loreto club, where her team-mates included Hannah Matthews, later an Irish Olympian. The designer still runs regularly before work in Central Park. A new lifestyle collection by Weber inspired by the Olympics has recently been launched in Arnotts, but the designer’s biggest satisfaction has been “making sure that everyone [in the group of athletes] was happy. Having 150 people happy was a huge achievement.”
Photographs of Irish athletes by Matthew Thompson