The Olympic costumes people remember include Torvill and Dean's purple Boléro outfits, Katarina Witt's red Carmen dress, Vera Wang's designs for Nancy Kerrigan and Alysa Liu's gold dress in Milan. Costumes have to follow the rules, which ask for clothing that's modest and suited to sport but can reflect the music. Here are the stories behind the best-known looks.
Key takeaways
- The ISU asks for clothing that's modest, dignified and suited to athletic competition, not garish or theatrical, though it can reflect the character of the music.
- If part of a costume falls on the ice, the referee takes a deduction, which is why costume makers sew everything on so carefully.
- Katarina Witt donated her red Carmen dress from Calgary 1988 to the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.
- Vera Wang designed Nancy Kerrigan's Olympic dresses, starting in 1992, after first saying no because she'd never made a skating costume.
- Alysa Liu won gold in Milan in a dress by Lisa McKinnon that took more than 100 hours to make.
A skating costume has a hard job. It has to look good from the top row of an arena and on television, stay put through jumps, spins and lifts, and still let the skater move freely. The best Olympic costumes manage all of that and become part of how we remember the program.
What the rules say
The ISU's rule asks for clothing that's modest, dignified and appropriate for athletic competition, and not garish or theatrical in design. It also says clothing may reflect the character of the music, which is the door most designers walk through. Costumes can't give the impression of excessive nudity, and a costume that breaks the rule can draw a deduction.
The rule people notice most is about things falling off. If part of a costume or a decoration lands on the ice, the referee takes a deduction, 1 point at senior level under the federation tables we checked, mostly because a stray bead or feather can cause a fall. That's why costume makers sew every stone and sequin on so carefully.
Torvill and Dean in purple, 1984
Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean skated their Boléro free dance in Sarajevo in matching purple costumes designed by Courtney Jones, and won gold with twelve perfect 6.0s. Nottingham's city museums took the costumes into their collection in 1990, and they've since been on display at Newstead Abbey.
Purple still belongs to them. When the pair went back to Sarajevo for the 40th anniversary in 2024, they asked people in the crowd to wear purple, the color of their 1984 costumes.
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Build a bundleKatarina Witt, 1988
Katarina Witt won her second Olympic title in Calgary skating as Carmen, in a red dress with black flounces on the skirt and sleeves and a flower in her hair. She later gave the dress to the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, which lists it in its collection. Witt has written that she donated it when the museum opened in 1993, after IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch asked her personally.
Witt is also linked to a costume rule. A blue costume she wore in Calgary, with feathers at the waist instead of a skirt, is usually given as the reason for the so-called "Katarina rule", which required women's costumes to include a skirt covering the hips. The rule has since been relaxed, and women can now wear trousers or unitards as well as skirts.
Nancy Kerrigan and Vera Wang
Nancy Kerrigan's coach, Mary Scotvold, asked the designer Vera Wang to make Kerrigan's costumes before the 1992 Albertville Games. Wang turned the job down at first because she'd never designed for skating. She later described having nightmares about a dress ripping at the armhole, a zipper coming undone, or a sequin dropping to the ice and causing a fall.
For the 1994 Lillehammer Games, Wang made Kerrigan a white short program dress with sheer black sleeves edged with rhinestones and pearls, based on a cocktail dress from her own collection. Kerrigan led after the short program and won silver behind Oksana Baiul. Wang kept designing for Olympic skaters for the next three decades.
Johnny Weir, 2010
Johnny Weir has always treated costumes as part of the show. At Vancouver 2010 he skated his short program in a costume he designed himself, a black corset with pink cording and a pink tassel. His free skate costume had included real fox fur at the U.S. Championships, and after pressure from animal rights groups he switched to faux fur for the Olympics. He finished sixth.
Pyeongchang 2018
Pyeongchang had the costume story every skater dreads. In the ice dance short dance, Gabriella Papadakis's costume came unfastened while she and Guillaume Cizeron were skating. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada went on to win gold by just 0.79 after skating their Moulin Rouge free dance.
Yuzuru Hanyu won his second Olympic title at the same Games with Seimei, and his costumes have become almost as famous as his programs. The Japanese designer Satomi Ito has made more than 30 costumes for him, and two of her designs for Hanyu were nominated for best costume at the ISU Skating Awards.
Milano Cortina 2026
Alysa Liu won gold in a glittering gold dress by the Los Angeles designer Lisa McKinnon, who said it took more than 100 hours of design, sewing and hand-placed beading. McKinnon also made costumes for Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito in Milan. Liu's dress is now part of the story of her comeback, which our article on Liu's Olympic gold tells in full.
The most talked-about outfit in the men's event belonged to Spain's Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté, who skated a Minions program in a Minions-inspired costume. The music rights were only cleared at the last minute, after he learned days before the Games that they hadn't come through. Our page on memorable Olympic music has that story.
Your own competition outfit
You don't need an Olympic budget to look great on the ice. The same principles apply at an adult competition: something that suits your music, fits well, lets you move and has nothing that can fall off. Practice in it before the day so there are no surprises.
Our guide to preparing for your first adult competition covers competition dress in more detail, including tights, hair and what to pack. For everyday sessions, our guide on what to wear ice skating has the practical side.
Sources
Costume details come from the designers, museums and reporting named below. Where sources disagreed, such as the exact history of the skirt rule, we left out the dates.
- U.S. Figure Skating board action, March 2025 (the clothing rule's wording), and the U.S. Figure Skating and Ice Skating Australia deduction tables for 2025-26.
- Costume Society, Reliving the Boléro, and AP coverage of Torvill and Dean's return to Sarajevo (February 2024).
- The Olympic Museum, collection record for Katarina Witt's Carmen dress, and Katarina Witt's account of the donation.
- MPR News, What not to wear: the rules of fashion on the ice, and Bustle on the Katarina rule.
- Tampa Bay Times, Ice couture (February 1994), and NBC on Vera Wang's 30 years of Olympic skating fashion.
- NPR, Johnny Weir on skating fashion (March 2010), and Figure Skaters Online on the fur.
- Eurosport (Reuters) and theScore on the Pyeongchang ice dance, and Satomi Ito's biography.
- ABC7, Meet the designer behind Alysa Liu's dress (February 2026), and AP on Guarino Sabaté's Minions program.
