We probably all agree: ideally, Olympic athletes should head to The Games clad in uniforms and gear designed and made in their respective countries. The miracle of globalization aside, The Games are still an international contest not only of athleticism, skill and sportsmanship but also of national pride. Over the course of the last century or so, the event has become the single-most conspicuous showcase of national and cultural achievement in the world. If the competition itself is about sport, the event in its totality is about much, much more. So yes, in an ideal world, every bit of swag carried by a team should come from its country. Hats, shoes, warm-ups, backpacks, they should all suggest to onlookers “this is us too. This is what we can do. Our country is cool like that.”
So naturally, it stings when a team arrives at The Games clad in uniforms made by foreign labor in a far-off country. It kind of sends the wrong message, doesn’t it? It kind of says “we could have made that stuff here, but we’ve decided to export our national pride right along with our jobs. Don’t tell anyone but we were too lazy to try to make it all here, and it cost too much anyway. And in case you hadn’t noticed, we kind of like cheap shit. I mean look at us! This beer helmet only cost me $9.99 for crying outloud!”
Not exactly what you would call a well crafted exercise in national branding.
It isn’t surprising then that last week, American lawmakers, after being notified that the US Olympic team’s uniforms had been manufactured in China instead of the good old US of A, decided to bitch and moan and show how disgusted they were about the whole thing:
Republicans and Democrats railed Thursday about the U.S. Olympic Committee’s decision to dress the U.S. team in Chinese manufactured berets, blazers and pants while the American textile industry struggles economically with many U.S. workers desperate for jobs.
“I am so upset. I think the Olympic committee should be ashamed of themselves. I think they should be embarrassed. I think they should take all the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them and start all over again,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference on taxes.
“If they have to wear nothing but a singlet that says USA on it, painted by hand, then that’s what they should wear,” he said, referring to an athletic jersey.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference that she’s proud of the nation’s Olympic athletes, but “they should be wearing uniforms that are made in America.”
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said simply of the USOC, “You’d think they’d know better.”
Can you blame them? No. Of course not. They’re right. My first reflex was exactly the same as theirs.
But then, I read this:
In a statement, the U.S. Olympic Committee defended the choice of designer Ralph Lauren for the clothing at the London Games, which begin later this month.
“Unlike most Olympic teams around the world, the U.S. Olympic Team is privately funded and we’re grateful for the support of our sponsors,” USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said in a statement. “We’re proud of our partnership with Ralph Lauren, an iconic American company, and excited to watch America’s finest athletes compete at the upcoming Games in London.”
Ralph Lauren also is dressing the Olympic and Paralympic teams for the closing ceremony and providing casual clothes to be worn around the Olympic Village. Nike has made many of the competition uniforms for the U.S. and outfits for the medal stand.
On Twitter, Sandusky called the outrage over the made-in-China uniforms nonsense. The designer, Sandusky wrote, “financially supports our team. An American company that supports American athletes.”
And right there and then, I realized something that, in my initial disgusted outrage, I had missed completely that the U.S. Olympic Team is privately funded. Ah. Well, that changes everything.
Here’s an idea: if you want American-made uniforms (which is totally understandable, we all want that) then write your congressman and demand that the Olympic program receive adequate funding from the federal government. Then, as owners of the US Olympic program, we the people can legitimately have a say as to where the uniforms are made (hopefully right here in the US).
Otherwise though, it’s probably best to just thank the sponsors who are footing the bill for you and STFU.
Here’s the soundbite I would actually like to hear from those outraged lawmakers at some point: “We could have opted to hand over funding to the private sector and risk have the uniforms manufactured overseas, and there were certainly compelling financial reasons to choose that option, but we felt that the uniforms absolutely should be American-made. To that end, we voted to do the responsible thing, which is to provide adequate financial support to the US Olympic program and ensure that those manufacturing jobs remain right here in the US.”
But no. Instead, we get fist-shaking and finger-pointing.
In the same vein, I can’t wait for lawmakers to voice their outrage when they finally discover in a few years that US astronauts have to resort to hitching rides on really ugly and dangerous looking European and Chinese rockets instead of fancy American spacecraft. (What? We defunded NASA’s manned space program? When?!)
It’s almost as if US lawmakers are just now finding out that the US textile industry has all but been decimated under their watch in the last few decades. (Um, yes, that fancy golf-themed tie you’re wearing was made in Bangladesh, that crap suit you couldn’t be bothered to have taken in by a proper tailor was made in Vietnam, and those rubber-soled 2-for-1 shoes you think are so fly were made in China.) So a) thanks for protecting and supporting US jobs, asshole, and b) please, why don’t you shake your angry little fist on TV and lecture us all on how we need to buy American? Because coming from you, that’s just dandy.
But I digress.
Friendly tip to lawmakers: if you deliberately defund a program, that program has to go become someone else’s bitch. And here’s the funny thing about giving up ownership of something: it isn’t yours anymore. You gave it away. It’s kind of like dumping your girlfriend and then bitching about how the diamond ring that her new boyfriend gave her isn’t what you would have bought. Yeah. You’ve just become that guy.
If you want to have your say, then fund the program. Own it. Nurture it. Grow it. Be responsible for it. Otherwise, have a Coke, a smile and shut the proverbial fuck up. Or better yet, call up the sponsors who are generously footing the bill for your lazy, stingy ass and thank them for picking up the tab for you.
Instead of complaining about the made-in-China uniforms they paid for because you wouldn’t, you should be on your knees kissing their asses and sending them chocolates for Christmas. Because without them, you wouldn’t even have an Olympic program to complain about. And if you had done your jobs for the last 30 years, the Ralph Laurens and Nikes of the world would have had realistic incentives to invest in more manufacturing capacity in the US instead of moving those jobs overseas. Chew on that next time your pro-deregualtion, pro-private-sector-solution ass walks into a clothing store and decides to continue supporting the creation of foreign jobs at the expense of US ones with every dollar you spend there. Keep preaching economic patriotism and US job creation too, while you’re at it. What? Our Olympic uniforms are made in China?! Oh the humanity!!!
So here we go:
Dear Ralph Lauren, Nike and the rest of the brands sponsoring and funding the US Olympic program, thank you for what you do. Without you, the US probably wouldn’t be going to the Olympics at all. What could be better than American companies that support American athletes and put clothes on their backs? Thank you. You do more for these kids and the image of the United States than all of Congress put together. So don’t listen to their sourpuss bullshit and keep it up.
Grrr.
</rant>
Cheers. 😉

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Spot on and TOTALLY agree!
Spot on and TOTTALY agree!
Totally agree with you. While I can understand the fervor, if any person in Congress wants to cry foul, then they should support USOC funding first. The official “mobility partner” of the USOC is BMW. They were selected in 2010 when General Motors bowed out and no other American carmaker stepped up. There wasn’t much uproar then and there isn’t any now, especially from the Republicans who failed to support the U.S. car bailout. The BMW brand to represent the Untied States Olympics team is OK. but American brand Ralph Lauren because he used Chinese manufacturing is not. What’s wrong with this picture? I wonder how many Chinese athletes practice using American made equipment. Should China say, “No more of that”? I thought politics wasn’t supposed to be part of the Olympic spirit.
Well, two things are of note, first of all. A) This debate actually got Pelosi, Reid, and Boehner to agree on something. Lord knows poverty, women’s health issues, AIDS, wars, and natural disasters can’t do that. All praise China-made Olympic uniforms. B) It got you to write an awesome blog post. So, no complaints here.
The Olympics “thing” is really becoming lame and depressing. There is a crafting community website called Ravelry, and for the last few Olympics games they’ve had their own Olympics event – people have to finish projects by the time different events are over, and each project gets harder as you go on. Neat idea, right? But the Olympic committee asked Ravelry to shut this game down because it was disrespectful. As a friend of mine said, it’s a bad idea to piss off a lot of people with two sharp needles each.
Then there’s the whole photography debacle.
And now this.
I feel like the world is so messed up that people are literally anxious to find ANYTHING else to occupy their minds. All of your points are valid, but seriously, this is what we’re getting in a hubub about? Really? What about the fact that like, half of the US is experiencing terrible, terrible drought? What about the fact that a lot of Olympians are flat broke because they aren’t allowed to profit from their experience? Or maybe we could talk about Syria. With the world’s attention in one place, wouldn’t that be a fantastic thing to start stressing about?
I’m not a big fan of nationalism – Wilfred Owen’s poetry kind of ruined it for me – but (and I could be wrong here) this seems like a giant non-issue to me. I think the fact that it’s being hammered by our leaders is the bigger debacle.
Awesome. The one thing they manage to agree on is poopoo.
Well I can see our heads were in the same place this morning as we enjoyed our coffee and wrote on our respective blogs. Thanks for the Facebook comment on ours too bye the way.
Almost forgot, here’s a statement from the media packet at the State of Style Advocacy Day on the Hill 2012 I spoke at in May. The Greater Washington Fashion Chamber of Commerce has been holding this event annually for three years. I saw NONE of these outraged politicians at my panel.
“In 1973, there were more than 2.4 million textile and apparel workers employed in the United States; by 1996, that figure had dropped by 40% and has intensified in the last decade. The textile and apparel industries have traditionally served a fundamental role in local economies by providing thousands of jobs and sizeable revenue streams for states including North Carolina, Alabama, Texas and New York. In recent years, globalization and technological advances have played a significant role in the decline of the US apparel and textile industry. Trade agreements, such as NAFTA and GATT, have created an open market that encourages global competition and yields greater profits because of the lower production costs in other countries. Over the last ten years, the United States has suffered a trade deficit in apparel and textiles with imports accounting for a larger share of domestic consumption. While these imports have helped to keep prices low for most consumers, they have been a contributing factor to declining employment and closed shops in the US textile and apparel industry.
To stem the tide of a shrinking market, we look to the workforce of the next generation to restore and preserve the health of the textile and apparel industry. These young designers are the business owners and jobs creators of tomorrow – the economic stimulus of the future, but we must provide the necessary tools and resources. Design schools such as Parsons and Fashion Institute of Technology have met the challenge, creating a pipeline of talent and graduating more design students every year. Also, fashion incubators throughout the country are serving as a great resource for growing designers providing added value to their professional development.
The National Fashion Incubator Coalition will focus on the future of the fashion industry by examining the U.S. textile and apparel industry, and efforts that encourage the growth of small businesses and entrepreneurship in fashion.”
Olivier,
Spectacular post. I’ve been talking up Thomas Friedman & Michael Mandelbaum’s book “That Used to be Us” enthusiastically. This scenario could’ve been taken from it. The hypocrisy of government & so-called special interest groups has reached staggering dimensions. If 10% of the energy spent masquerading for the cameras had been spent on trying to rebuild the US economy we’d be in a different place. Nicely done Ralph Lauren.
Great post mate.
Smack, slap, I should have realized that. Aggravates me I didn’t. Eyes open now. Thank you Olivier. Point well made and well taken. Appreciate it.
I was all set to share the Philip Hersh piece in the Chicago Tribune (registration required, paywall, all that stuff) from a week ago. Since I can’t, let me sum up what Hersh – one of the most influential Olympic writer/reporter/scholars in the world – had to say:
(1) We’re the only country in the world whose government doesn’t fund its Olympic athletes.
(2) The flap is misguided – don’t direct it at the USOC or Ralph Lauren, direct it at Congress.
So…you have company. Great post.
I wonder where the outrage was when Roots of Canada designed and manufactured Team USA gear?
I think you know the answer to that.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Oliver. This whole brouhaha (don’t you love that word?) is yet another sign of what’s wrong with this country: we think solely in terms of band-aid solutions, and blow diversions like this way out of proportion (the better to keep you from focusing on the real issue at hand: both parties are selling this country down the toilet).
Right on.
Good article although even privately funded organizations should make sound judgements. In a world of political correctness fervor one would think such large organizations such as USOC and Ralph Lauren would have saw the chess pieces a few moves in advance. Regardless, our view is a little more biased towards patriotism http://redwhiteblue.co/2012/07/olympic-committee-receives-patriotism-injections-senate-2014-team-usa-uniforms-america/
Well, yeah. It wasn’t exactly hard to figure out that someone would eventually notice and raise a stink.