Every time Staff Canada laces up its skates and clips on its skis for one more Olympics, followers again house turn out to be armchair critics — and it’s not simply the performances they’re judging.
The previous few Video games have proven that Canadians like to hate their group’s uniform. They griped concerning the graffiti-inspired jean jackets Hudson’s Bay made for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and in contrast the sample on a few of the red-and-white items in Lululemon Athletica Inc.’s assortment for the 2024 Paris Video games to raw bacon.
This 12 months, they’re likening the maroon and pink color scheme Lululemon is utilizing for the uniform to a Tim Hortons cup and complaining {that a} puffy, shawl-like vest the group wore on the opening ceremony was akin to a sleeping bag or outsized oven mitt.
However specialists say none of that criticism actually issues as a result of outfitters don’t grasp a lot of their enterprise on these Olympic collections.
They’re normally produced in smaller portions, offered for a brief time period and handled extra like a advertising and marketing device or product check mattress than a serious model builder.
“So long as the dialog is concerning the esthetic and never concerning the high quality, match or performance for athletes, it’s not a detrimental factor,” mentioned Lisa Hutcheson, a retail strategist with J.C. Williams Group.
“I wouldn’t be stressing over it if I used to be Lululemon.”
This 12 months’s Olympic assortment is the third from the Vancouver-based attire retailer, which didn’t reply to a request for remark. It includes a darker palette of reds, maroons and glacier-inspired blue-greens and makes use of a topographical map of Canada in a few of the designs.
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Most of the jackets have giant hoods to supply extra protection and built-in, backpack-like straps so the garment can simply be carried when it’s heat out.
A few of the pants are designed so athletes utilizing wheelchairs can comfortably sit and carry out in them, and most of the items are made with abrasion-resistant materials and magnetic zippers.
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A number of of these options, just like the jacket straps, had been hits throughout prior Video games and have since been included in broader collections Lululemon makes, mentioned Hutcheson, who feels the corporate makes use of the Olympic uniform as a check mattress.
“If there’s some objects that basically stand out of their sell-through, that may be one thing that they’ll think about shifting ahead,” she mentioned.
“Perhaps they’ll promote extra cape-like jackets … so that is the time to check the merchandise and see whether or not or not it may very well be one thing that you simply make, perhaps minus an enormous Canada flag — or perhaps it has a Canada flag.”
The cape-like jacket she was referring to is definitely a maroon-coloured quilted vest, which includes a large maple leaf. When the arm holes are zipped up, it turns into a shawl and when it’s cinched with a drawcord, it turns into a pillow.
Like Hutcheson, Liza Amlani thinks the frosty reception the vest has acquired on-line “won’t damage” Lululemon as a result of the gathering is so fleeting.
Whereas opinions of the uniform have been “blended,” the co-founder of the Retail Technique Group mentioned the general assortment is “robust.”
“The color palette and silhouettes strike a stability between efficiency and on a regular basis put on, making the product accessible not simply to athletes, however to Lululemon’s broader buyer base,” she mentioned in an electronic mail.
Others seem to agree. Vogue journal Vogue just lately named it among the finest uniforms of those Olympics and athletes have had few qualms about exhibiting it off in social media movies
When determine skater Lia Pereira opened her haul, she even mentioned on Instagram, “I used to be actually, NOT prepared for a way cool this Canadian equipment is!! Lululemon you’ve got outdone your self.”
But TikTok nonetheless abounds with individuals who say the inexperienced items within the assortment aren’t patriotic, they don’t like the road type look they usually want the gathering had an iconic merchandise just like the pink mittens HBC made when it was outfitting the group earlier than Lululemon.
These critics shouldn’t be discounted simply because athletes just like the uniform, mentioned Henry Navarro Delgado, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan College’s vogue division.
He identified the Olympic uniform is a really small assortment, however creating it’s costly, even for an athleticwear large like Lululemon.
“By promoting variations of these merchandise to most of the people, that’s the one approach that they’ll recoup the expense of creating these merchandise within the first place,” he mentioned. “So if folks don’t like them and don’t purchase them, it is unnecessary … from a enterprise perspective and it’s simply not good for Lululemon.”
However as soon as athletes are on the video games and objects are in shops, it’s too late to do something about detrimental suggestions that emerges, he mentioned.
“All you are able to do is simply keep in mind it for subsequent time, if in case you have that chance once more.”
Lululemon signed a six-year contract with Staff Canada that may final lengthy sufficient for it to decorate the nation’s athletes on the subsequent Summer time Video games in Los Angeles in 2028.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Feb. 11, 2026.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
