Lululemon will dress Canada’s 2026 Olympic athletes in patriotic...aubergine?
There’s nothing wrong with good old-fashioned red
When Canada’s Olympic athletes descend on Milano Cortina next year, they’ll bring their strength, their stamina and their wardrobe of tasteful quilted outerwear by Lululemon. Yesterday, a bunch of star athletes attended the Canadian activewear brand’s unveiling ceremony at one of its Toronto stores. The event also featured a video message from new Lulu ambassador Sidney Crosby.
As always, anticipation to view the looks our country will sport on the world’s biggest sporting stage was high. Reactions, on the other hand, have been a little muted (which is not nearly as bad as the backlash against the 2024 Paris kits, which critics described as “blood-spattered” and resembling uncooked bacon).
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“Muted” is also a good way to describe the designs’ unexpected colour palette of deep maroon and iridescent forest green. Even the red is a burnt autumnal shade, perhaps because, per a press release, the colours are “inspired by Canada’s natural environment.”
By far the buzziest piece in the collection is the eggplant-coloured vest—which is also a scarf and a pillow—featuring a full-body maple leaf. Imagine what the owner of an Ossington coffee shop would wear to an après-ski party: that’s what Canada’s athletes will be wearing at the 2026 opening ceremonies.
“Dramatic” is one word that’s flying around. (The images of figure skaters Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier in the vest-coat look like they’re taken from a production of Madama Butterfly.) But is that really the vibe Canada is going for as the trade war continues and Trump threatens to 51st-state us?
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To be fair, designing the Olympic wardrobe is sort of an impossible task. Too traditional and it’s boring and predictable. Too edgy and everyone’s all, Bring back the basics. Every now and then, there is an uncontested win (think Ross Rebagliati–era Roots gear). Other outfits become iconic with age (the fringed fits from Calgary 1988 would not be out of place on a Beyoncé tour). And of course, there are the inexplicable favourites (those red Vancouver mittens that are just red mittens, but suddenly people were willing to kill for them).
Whether Canadians will be clamouring for Lulu’s vest-scarf-pillow remains to be seen. Lululemon says the gear is designed to take the athletes from the temperate streets of Milan to the frosty mountains of Cortina, which explains the layering but not the aubergine.
To be fair, maroon is a perfectly nice colour. It’s not even unprecedented in Canada’s Olympic wardrobe history (see: Salt Lake 2002). It just sort of feels like, of all years, perhaps this was the time to go classic Canadiana—less avant-garde, more stand on guard.
Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”
