You're reading: Ukraine’s Olympic team uniforms designed by Russian firm

In the United States, a public scandal erupted because the nation’s Olympic uniforms were made in China. Will the same be true when people learn that Ukraine’s Olympic team uniforms were not only designed in Russia, but also by the same Moscow-headquartered company that supplied the Russian team?

Probably not, but the similarities in the uniforms of the two nations are being noted. 

Ukraine’s 245 Olympic athletes will go to London with uniforms made by the Russian company Bosco, which also made the ones to be worn by the Russian squad. While the colors are different, some of the ornamentation on the uniforms appear similar.

The presentation of the uniforms for Ukraine’s team was held on July 12 in Kyiv for the games that start on July 27.

Bosco designers chose the style of early ‘70s fashions for Ukrainians to wear at the opening and closing ceremonies. 

Male athletes will have bell-bottomed trousers, pointed-collar shirts and single-breasted jackets with wide lapels. Women get capris, colorful tunics and short vests. But the greater part of the collection is everyday clothing.  

A common element is a stylized shaft of wheat.

The red-white Russia collection presented on June 28 also includes similar features.
Ukrainian Olympians’ wore Bosco uniforms at the Beijing Games in 2008 for the first time, while this is the Russian team’s sixth collection from Bosco.

Mikhail Suprunenko, general director of Bosco’s representative office in Ukraine, said to reporters that the look of Ukraine team differs from what Russians have – and it’s all provided free of charge to the team members.

Serhiy Bubka, president of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, is pleased with the colorful uniforms as done in the spirit and style of the Ukrainian flag and cultural traditions.

“That is an essential part of the victory – the way you stand, the way you look, what clothes you are wearing,” Bubka is quoted as saying on the committee’s website. 

However, others aren’t satisfied with everything in the Bosco collection Kyiv fashion designer Fedor Voziyanov says the dark vest for female athletes doesn’t go well with the colorful tunic. “That vest is a strange blunder,” Voziyanov said. 

Voziyanov sees nothing traditionally Ukrainian in the style. “Hence there appears the certain feeling that the Ukraine team’s uniform is borrowed from the Russians,” he said.  

Still, the made-in-Russian designs are not likely to provoke the fierce outcry that took place when Americans learned their athletes would be wearing made-in-China uniforms.

According to Reuters, Ralph Lauren’s stylish uniforms for the U.S. Olympic team, complete with a jaunty beret, were introduced as U.S. unemployment hovers at 8 percent Rep. Steve Israel, a Democrat from New York, issued a statement saying: “Today there are 600,000 vacant manufacturing jobs in this country and the Olympic committee is outsourcing the manufacturing of uniforms to China? That is not just outrageous, it’s just plain dumb. It is self-defeating,” Reuters reported.

The U.S. Olympic Committee defended its decision to have Lauren design the outfits.

“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,” spokesman Patrick Sandusky said in a statement, according to the Reuters account.

Ukraine’s Olympic team, by contrast, receives government funds.  

The Bosco uniform is available in the company’s official shops, for stiff prices: Hr 880 for T-shirts, Hr 1,400 for shorts; Hr 1,250 for a stylish dress and Hr 1,100 for jogging shoes.  

Bosco is expected to design uniforms for Ukraine’s Olympic Team at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.  

Kyiv Post  staff writer Denis Rafalsky can be reached at [email protected]