50 Folks, 4 Years, 10,000 Swarovski Crystals: How Group USA’s Gymnastics Leotards Get Made

Gymnastics—like diving and determine skating—is an Olympic sport the place artistry and aesthetics are intertwined with athleticism. As Simone Biles and her teammates catapult and contort their our bodies this month in Paris, they’ll be doing so in leotards embellished with roughly 10,000 diamond-shaped Swarovski crystals. (That’s practically 2,000 greater than Group USA wore again in Tokyo in 2021.) Sporting the uniforms to compete is the final step in a course of that took 4 years and greater than 50 individuals to finish.

“After I opened up the Olympic leotards, my first thought was that they have been completely gorgeous,” Jade Carey, an Olympic gold medalist and 2024 Paris Group USA gymnast, tells SELF. Carey, Biles, Jordan Chiles, Sunisa Lee, and Hezley Rivera, unboxed their new leotards, which have been made by gymnastics attire firm GK Elite, earlier this month. “They’re filled with crystals, tremendous patriotic, and actually lovely,” Carey says. “I can not wait to see how they shine beneath the lights within the area.”

For Jeanne Diaz, GK Elite’s director of design, and Erica Schnebel, the corporate’s director of promoting, it was a strong second. “I am getting chills nonetheless fascinated about it,” Schnebel tells SELF. “As they began opening it, I’m watching their faces, I’m watching their reactions, and I feel, exterior of their pleasure, one factor that struck me was Jeanne’s response—I regarded over and he or she’s bawling pleased tears as a result of that’s her work coming to life,” Schnebel says. “It is a crew of athletes we all know very well and couldn’t have been prouder of every of them.”

Easy methods to make a leotard with 10,000 crystals for the very best gymnasts on this planet

Diaz notes that every leotard is crafted, at the beginning, with performance in thoughts, which begins with intel from the specialists themselves. She says that GK Elite polls USA Gymnastics members on what options—from necklines to materials to the quantity of glitz—they’ve most loved, or maybe disliked, in earlier uniforms. Nonetheless, as Diaz says, there aren’t normally many surprises. That’s as a result of the corporate has suited up Olympic gymnasts since 1996, so after virtually three many years, they’ve a fairly good concept of what works and what doesn’t.

Upclose image of crystals on Team USA Leotard

One other means to make sure the leotards assist, moderately than hinder, efficiency? They’re every custom-made. “We make a leotard for each athlete that was competing on the Olympic trials, and now we have all their sizing forward of time,” Diaz explains, including that every garment is laser-cut for tremendous exact measurements. (Mainly, they’re meant to really feel like a second pores and skin.)

Tags: Crystals, Gymnastics, Leotards, People, Swarovski, Team, USAs, Years

50 Folks, 4 Years, 10,000 Swarovski Crystals: How Group USA’s Gymnastics Leotards Get Made

Easy methods to make a leotard with 10,000 crystals for the very best gymnasts on this planet

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Easy methods to make a leotard with 10,000 crystals for the very best gymnasts on this planet

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