SPYDER UNVEILS ITS UNIFORMS FOR THE U.S. OLYMPIC SKI TEAMS
Activewear brand Spyder, a division of Authentic Brands Group (ABG), today revealed the uniforms it has created for the U.S. Alpine Ski Team, U.S. Freestyle Ski Team and U.S. Freeski Team at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games that will take place in Beijing next month. Spyder has been an official apparel partner of the U.S. Ski Team since 1989 and will be represented by more than 60 Olympic athletes this year.
Artist and designer Eric Haze, a New York City native who has provided imagery for everything from album covers to items from internationally recognizable brands, designed this latest batch of uniforms.
“It’s such an incredible honor to put my fingerprints on the U.S. Alpine Ski Team, U.S. Freestyle Ski Team and U.S. Freeski Team uniforms, especially when they’ll be wearing them on such a huge world stage as the Beijing Olympic Games. I can’t wait to see the teams actually competing in them,” said Haze in a statement.
Inspired by the American flag, the collection features outerwear, base layers and accessories that are sustainable and technically advanced. Haze’s signature lettering, STAR icon and hand-painted pattern work are visible on all the collection’s pieces.
“February of 2022 will be our ninth Olympic Games outfitting the U.S. Ski Team and with each Games our goal is to provide products that give our athletes a competitive advantage while incorporating comfort and protection from the cold,” added Brady Collings, Global GM of Spyder. “This year is no exception and working with Eric Haze has allowed us to bring a fresh design perspective while infusing the technology and performance the athletes and the team expect from Spyder. This collection will give our athletes the edge they need to perform at their best and bring home the gold.”
The 2022 Spyder Team Collection is outfitted with Spyder’s latest technology and highest performing materials to date. Every detail of all 29 styles of the collection including the apparel and goggles were developed with direct athlete feedback and uses discipline-specific functionality.
All outerwear styles are composed of Gore-Tex fabrics, Primaloft ECO insulation and YKK zippers. The U.S. Freestyle Ski Team and U.S. Freeski Team outerwear uses 100% recycled polyester fabric with Gore-Tex Laminate and PFCecFree DWR and PrimaLoft SilverECO insulation, and the U.S. Alpine Ski Team outerwear uses a brand new engineered woven face fabric with Gore-Tex Laminate and PFCecFree DWR. A new baselayer technology will be introduced as well, in a cut-resistant, proprietary Kevlar/graphene stretch knit pant.
For the first time in Spyder’s history, the brand designed, developed and produced an aerials one-piece kit and a skier cross race suit, both of which use individual athlete measurements to optimize performance and fit. The fit in the pants and training shorts in all three disciplines was designed to optimize comfort, warmth and performance specific to each sport.
To complete the uniform, Spyder and Haze partnered with Dragon to create the NFX Spyder Goggles. The goggles feature a frameless lens providing added peripheral vision giving athletes the ability to locate the best lines on the mountain.
A new optical style that comes in a classic, modified rectangle shape and three metal colorations will also make its debut.