As the USA women’s gymnastics team dons the stripes and stars at the 2024 Summer Olympics, one Cornell alum is helping them sparkle.
Jeanne Diaz ’10 designed the uniforms the gymnasts are competing in in Paris, France, incorporating more than 47,000 Swarovski crystals across each athlete’s eight-leotard set.
A College of Human Ecology alum, Diaz is now the design director at Elite Sportswear, the official outfitter for Team USA Gymnastics since 2000. They have designed and manufactured the leotards for the last six Olympics. In addition to the United States, GK Elite has outfitted other nations in the past, including the Netherlands, Canada, Mexico and Colombia.
Though the games began in late July, the design and production process for the leotards started long before 2024.
“We start the ideation process two years in advance,” Diaz said. “We start with an athlete survey and just get an idea of what they’re wanting to see in their leotards.”
The creative team also considers the culture and location of where the games will take place. This year’s games are in Paris — a city that last hosted the Olympics a century ago, in 1924.
“My team went ahead and created mood boards,” Diaz said. “Our goal was to merge Parisian couture, Parisian art [and Parisian] architecture and fuse that with iconic Americana — two things that are pretty different.”
Diaz said that it can be challenging to combine aspects of two separate cultures into one design.
“How do we merge those two things into a collection that is really cohesive and beautiful?” Diaz said. “That’s really why it takes two years to make sure that this collection we’re putting out there is a really strong one because it’s the world’s biggest stage. And especially this Olympics because of Simone Biles, all eyes are going to be on gymnastics.”
The International Gymnastics Federation does have a few requirements designers must abide by, the primary one being that the country mark — which must measure at least 30 square centimeters — be included in the design. Though no color requirement exists, the USA leotards typically are red, white and blue.
“[The leotards] don’t have to be patriotic or red, white and blue colors for Team USA, but it is super important for the team and also for the spectators,” Diaz said. “It's something that has not always been a priority historically when you look back at previous Olympics, but it has become a very big priority, and we are happy to oblige that. We love the fact that you can look out onto the floor and not see the country mark but know exactly who Team USA is.”
The design team also evaluates how their designs might influence judging.
“We think about making sure we’re not highlighting areas that could show [a] break in form,” Diaz said. “For example, [we avoid] running straight line sleeve stripes underneath the inseam of the sleeve, because on uneven bars, if there’s a form break at all on the arms, that stripe on the sleeve will help highlight that, so we don’t want to do that.”
Aside from requirements and concerns about judging, Diaz and her team primarily use the athlete survey to gather athlete preferences as the baseline of designs.
“Ultimately, we always want to be the athlete's first choice,” Diaz said. “We started with a survey asking a variety of questions from neckline to fabric choice to color choice [to] crystal usage.”
GK Elite uses multiple types of fabrics and materials in their leotards.
“We source fabrics that meet our stringent requirements,” Diaz said. “We don’t want any leg lines riding up or weak seams, so we source the best fabrics and put them through rigorous stretch tests, wash tests, wear tests, and we test the adhesion of our crystals to the fabric.”
GK Elite typically uses nylon spandex blends or polyester spandex blends since both fabrics are good for stretching purposes. This year the Olympic leotards were made using a new material — stretch satin.
“We sourced a stretch satin, so it's like a really high shine filament yarn fabric that we have not used in gymnastics, that no one has used in gymnastics,” Diaz said. “We are going to be the first to introduce it and we custom dyed it to the right red that we wanted to use and in the specific style we used it in.”
Athletes particularly expressed their desire for mesh to be utilized in the designs.
“Mesh has become a standard of being used in sleeves,” Diaz said. “And the upper bodice area of leotards — that was something that was super important to the athletes.”
The gymnasts were also asked whether they would like velvet as part of their leotards, since “velvet has been making a comeback in the general ready-to-wear fashion.” Diaz said that designers wanted to measure how velvet “would be received in gymnastics.”
“[Athletes] would like to see touches of velvet, so we incorporated some touches — little binding accents and high neck collars,” Diaz said. “It really does help with comfort because it's so soft, but we didn't want to use it in big areas so that they get really hot.”
Crystal usage in gymnastic leotards has grown increasingly popular over the recent years and as the Olympic games are viewed by a worldwide audience, GK Elite spares no expense when selecting which crystals they use.
“We use Swarovski crystals,” Diaz said. “We use the best of the best. Our brand is the leading brand in gymnastics apparel, so we make sure that all of our raw materials are also the best of the best.”
Each gymnast receives eight leotards and thousands of crystals are attached in distinct patterns on each one. The 47,000 crystals were used across each of the seven — five main competitors and two alternates — gymnasts’ eight leotards.
Diaz said an estimated retail price could vary from $1,000 to $5,000 for each leotard.
“They are that encrusted with Swarovski crystals and there’s just that much effort and it really is a couture garment,” Diaz said, explaining how the leotards would cost thousands of dollars. “There is a lot of hand placing of crystals, a lot of hand-done elements to these that would make them that expensive.”
Though exact replicas are not on the market, more affordable replica leotards are. This year marks the first time Elite Sportswear has made replicas available for purchase before the start of the Olympics, allowing fans and young gymnasts the opportunity to wear matching leotards during the games, explained Erica Schnebel, director of marketing at Elite Sportswear.
Schnebel believes an important part of marketing the USA leotards is making sure that anyone watching the Olympics is aware of who is sponsoring the USA gymnastics team.
Through the design and manufacture of the leotards, Schnebel hopes that individuals across the world can come to appreciate GK Elite for their unique and innovative creations.
“It's an opportunity where we can kind of flex our design and show the world that GK is the leader in gymnastics apparel manufacturing,” Schnebel said. “And that we're continuing to push the boundaries and what people think a leotard could be.”
“These athletes [are] representing the USA and we want to ensure that what the athletes are wearing have a strong patriotic pride to them,” Schnebel said. “[And] are rooted in things that are core to what we think about when [we] think of the United States.”
Following the conclusion of the Olympics, gymnasts can keep their leotards as mementos of their time competing in the games, with some framing them or placing them in shadow boxes to display.
“These leotards really become special to the athletes,” Diaz said. “It's like brides keeping their wedding dress — they are special [and] they become representative of all the hard work that [the athletes] put in.”
Team USA’s team final leotard, named “Go for Glory,” was designed to resemble the American flag. The crystalized outfit combines the traditional USA colors of red, white and blue, while incorporating star and stripe patterns.
“It was meant to be designed after that feeling that an athlete receives an American flag from a spectator,” Diaz said. “After they win a medal, they wrap that flag around them and hold it behind them. That's the feeling that we really wanted to evoke in that team final leotard — that feeling of not only pride for your country but that the weight of the United States is behind them, supporting them.”
On Tuesday, the U.S. women’s gymnastics team earned a gold medal in the team final, hoisting a matching American flag to their glittering leotards.
Diaz hopes the leotards remind Americans of their shared sense of pride and admiration for their country.
“I hope that what we set out to do, what we set out to be inspired by, is received by the athletes and the spectators,” Diaz said.
