Why Must Team USA’s Olympics Uniforms Always Make the Same Mistake?

As a Canadian, it’s on the fine print of my green card that most sentences I write while on American soil must start with the disclaimer, “As a Canadian.” I don’t make the rules; I’m not entirely sure who does but I’m happy to avoid deportation. And so, as a Canadian, it is with routine horror that I gaze upon the newly unveiled Team USA outfits for this summer’s Paris Olympics.

You know what comes to mind when I think “American Olympic team”? Blazers. And that’s precisely what Ralph Lauren is serving with the new team uniforms: The opening ceremony’s fit is a striped oxford shirt, a navy blazer with red and white stripes, and light-wash denim jeans. A sea of this country’s finest athletes, dressed like they have private school at 3 p.m. but are subbing in for Springsteen at 9. For the closing ceremony, it gets worse, with a Ballad of Ricky Bobby–ass denim moto jacket paired with matching white jeans. Splashed across the front of this affront to our eyeballs? The letters “USA,” emblazoned in good old red, white, and blue.

Since the advent of the Ralph Lauren polo shirt in 1972, Ralph Lauren has been viewed as a quintessentially American brand—at least, for a particular type of American. Affluent, white, probably on a boat somewhere with Ted Kennedy (they call him Teddy), the Ralph Lauren dresser seems synonymous with a specific slice of Americana. Growing up in Canada, I viewed the brand as all-American, and didn’t see much of it—on my peers, on my parents’ friends, in advertising—until I moved to the U.S. Is anything more American than putting a bear in an American flag sweater on a sweater? Nothing, unless that bear also has $20,000 in medical debt.

And so it makes sense that, since 2008, Ralph has been the designer for all Team USA outfits. It also explains why they’re so ugly. Backlash against this current spate of outfits has been swift, and is reminiscent of almost every other time the designer has made outfits for the Olympics. In 2014, Ralph debuted Olympics cardigans and hats, with the Olympic rings on one breast, “USA” on the other, flags on both arms, and a cartoonish number of stars. Get it? Because America? Because flag red, white, blue? Flag have stars. Flag have stripes! Me love flag. Rock, flag, and eagle.

Of course, the Olympics are all about nationalistic pride. “Doesn’t every country positively drape their athletes in patriotic flags?” you might ask. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and in fact, it seems that other countries routinely have better, less visually offensive outfits for the Olympics. France’s uniforms are also a play on their flag—same red, white, and blue, too, but I’m still calling them “freedom fries”!—and yet are more creatively refreshing than Team USA’s stuffy threads. Everything in Team France’s design suite looks like a melted Bomb Pop: sprightly, fun, poppy, wearable. Do you know how ugly your shit has to be for it to get one-upped by Canada’s aggressively red Lululemon Olympics uniform? The design concept seems to be “blood everywhere,” but at least it’s not a three-button red blazer with a maple leaf on it, which is something we definitely never did.

Team USA outfits are determined to look less like clothes that use elements of the flag so much as they’re flags cut into the shape of outfits. Even for such a patriotic occasion, it feels like overkill. For some reason, the only representation of American exceptionalism you all can come up with is stars and stripes and three colors that have to be shared with the French. Are the Ralph Lauren jackets worse than the godawful unitards Nike made for the track and field teams? No, but only because at least the Ralph Lauren outfits fully cover your mons pubis; the women’s cut of the unitard runs so high along the groin, you’d be able to give birth on live television without undressing.

It wasn’t always like this; America used to be a proper country. In 1968, the figure skating team wore these futuristic outfits complete with an American seal. Compare that with the double-breasted jackets and berets that Team USA got in 2012 after Ralph Lauren took over, and there’s little to do besides weep. In a few years, I’ll be eligible for citizenship here in America. I haven’t yet decided if it’s an opportunity I’ll take, but I know I’m going to need a better Members Only jacket.