Noah Lyles’s ‘icon’ nails, goat necklaces and buzz cuts – the latest in Olympics fashion

From the athletes’ kits to pointed accessories and fashion icons in the audience, style at the Olympics is practical, spectacular and sometimes fascinatingly ordinary. We take a look at some of the best moments so far

and

Main image: Time to shine … Simone Biles in her Swarovski-studded leotard at the Paris Olympics. Photograph: Jamie Squire/Getty Images


The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.

  • Simone Biles became the most decorated gymnast in the world this week, making her the greatest of all time, or the GOAT. To celebrate, she wore a goat necklace, apparently made up of 546 diamonds. ‘The haters hate it, so I love that even more,’ she said.
    Simone Biles smiles as she holds up her diamond-encrusted silver goat necklace

  • Rayssa Leal became famous aged seven, when footage of her landing a ‘fairytale heelflip’ dressed in a blue fairy princess costume went viral. Now she’s won a bronze medal in Paris wearing the gold and green of Brazil.
    Rayssa Leal performing a skateboarding stunt

  • Sara Balzer, a fencer, is one of several athletes to give fans a behind the scenes look at the Olympics on TikTok in recent days, including posting a video of her official kit.
    Sara Balzer lifts her fencing mask in the air. She wears a silver top covering her arms and neck and white trousers that have the French flag on the side. She holds her sword in one hand and is looking off to the side. Behind her spectators sit in the stands

  • The Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka during her match against Angelique Kerber of Germany, wearing a red tennis dress with built-in shorts. The colour red is associated with strength and power in Japanese culture. Osaka has also given fans a behind-the-scenes look at life at the Olympics on TikTok.
    Naomi Osaka is mid-jump on the clay courts of Roland Garros. She holds her racket in both hands as she swings it behind her. She wears a white Nike visor, red sweatbands on her wrists, a red dress with built-in shorts and orange trainers

  • Women’s basketball is having something of a fashion moment, and WNBA stars such as Caitlyn Clark and Angel Reese have become known for their style. Another name joined them for the Olympics: Melissa Vargas, who plays for Turkey and the Turkish club Fenerbahçe Opet, arrived on the radar of fashion thanks to her chic buzz cut and multiple tattoos.
    Side view of Melissa Vargas pointing at something off-camera. She wears a black basketball jersey with the number 4 on the front. She has a buzzcut and tattoos on her arms, shoulders, neck

  • The swimmer Yufei Zhang of China headed to the pool in a very chic changing robe. The wave-shaped padding wouldn’t have looked out of place on the catwalk.
    Yufei Zhang takes off her red padded coat as she walks to the pool. It has padding in the shape of waves on the front and ‘China’ in capital letters over the hood. She is wearing a swimming cap with her name on, goggles, a white top, red trousers and white trainers

  • There’s no missing the Italia kits, the work of Emporio Armani, seen here on Nicolò Martinenghi, the Italian gold medallist in the men’s 100m breaststroke.
    Nicolò Martinenghi, Adam Peaty and Nic Fink stand on the podium holding their medals up to the camera. Martinenghi wears a black jumper with ‘Italia’ across the front in bold, capital letters. Peaty wears a white tracksuit with ‘Great Britain’ across the front and Fink wears a dark blue tracksuit

  • Noah Lyles, reigning world champion in the 100m and 200m sprints, is out to prove he is the fastest man on Earth. His message has been filtering into his clothes via nail art that reads ‘Icon’ and a cap that says ‘Made It’ under its peak.
    Noah Lyles holds up the peak of the cap he is wearing to show the words ‘made it’ printed underneath. ‘Icon’ is spelled out on the nails on the hand holding the cap. He is wearing a dark blue jacket and is sitting in front of a microphone

  • Simone Biles made a triumphant return to the Olympic stage, performing her Yurchenko double pike vault – AKA the Biles II – in a leotard featuring 10,000 Swarovski crystals.
    Simone Biles grins as she stands with her arms in the air. She wears a shiny, metallic-effect blue, navy and black leotard. The top half of it has stars across the front. There are crystals across the top half of her leotard and on the arms

  • The stands have been filled with celebrities. Watching the return of Biles were the dancer Frankie Grande, his pop star sister Ariana Grande, the actor Cynthia Erivo and the actor and producer Lena Waithe. Sitting behind Anna Wintour, they got the memo that this was about style as well as stuck landings.
    Frankie Grande has bleach-blond hair wept back from his face and in wearing blue eyeshadow, a US Olympics team T-shirt and white jeans. He is leaning in for the selfie. Ariana wears circular white sunglasses and a plain white belted dress. She is pouting for the picture. Erivo wears dark sunglasses and a light green smart shirt with a green and white tie. She is smiling for the photo. Waithe wears a baseball cap, dark sunglasses and a loose-fitting dark blue relaxed fit shirt. She is leaning in for the picture. In the row in front of them, a man in a blue shirt and cream trousers holds a phone up to take the photo. A woman next to him in a white dress leans back for the picture. In the row in front of them, Anna Wintour, recognisable side-on by her distinctive bob and dark sunglasses, is leaning in to talk to two people next to her

  • The American film director Spike Lee, who is rarely without a baseball cap, was spotted wearing a Knicks cap and matching glasses at the US basketball team’s match against Serbia on Sunday. He told the Guardian in 2019 his style ethos was ‘wear something colourful and wear something comfortable. I don’t have to have Yankees or [basketball team] New York Knicks stuff on me all the time, but a lot of my clothes are orange and blue, the Knicks colours, I will admit to that’. Five years on and nothing has changed.
    Spike Lee lifts an orange Knicks baseball cap above his head. He is wearing orange-rimmed glasses and a USA basketball jersey over a dark blue T-shirt. He is also wearing two long necklace chains

  • Her infamous bob might have been perfectly intact and her sunglasses firmly in situ, but Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, looked uncharacteristically animated during the gymnastics on Sunday.
    Anna Wintour is standing up in the stands. She is wearing a white dress with a pink, red and black flowery pattern. She has her arms up and palms facing outward. Two people in USA jackets - one white and one dark blue - are facing her with their backs to the camera

  • Lady Gaga was spotted watching the swimming in one of the summer’s biggest trends – motocross-inspired jackets.
    Lady Gaga wears dark sunglasses with her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and a bulky United States Olympic team jacket in three white, red and blue stripes

  • Slogan T-shirts made their way into the crowd too, via the children of Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black. ‘That’s my papa’, read their T-shirts as they and Black watched the men’s synchronised 10m platform final.
    Dustin Lance Black, wearing a cream trousers and shirt co-ord over a white T-shirt, stands holding one of his sons who is wearing a white T-shirt with ‘that’s my papa!’ printed on the back. His other son is standing beside him with his back to the camera in a matching T-shirt.

  • Not to be outdone, Daley was spotted knitting a red, white and blue jumper emblazoned with his surname in the stands as he watched the women’s synchronised 3m springboard final. He’s an avid knitter and crocheter, and his skills appear to be taking off.
    Members of Team GB sit in the stands wearing blue T-shirts, jackets and tops. Daley holds up the jumper, which is dark blue with a red collar and has ‘Daley’ in white across it. He holds a knitting needle in one hand and appears to be inspecting his work. Other members of the team sitting with him are also looking at the jumper

  • Pharrell Williams, the American music artist and creative director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear, was one of the final big names to carry the Olympic torch during the last leg of the 2024 relay. He stuck to the official torch relay uniform but debuted a new style of trainer from his partnership with Adidas. Named the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1, the shoes are described as ‘the lightest racing shoe ever created by Adidas’, at 138 grams.
    Pharrell Williams wears orange-tinted sunglasses, a white crew neck jumper and cream shorts. He has one hand in his shorts pocket and in the other holds the Olympic torch. he wears white trainers which curve upwards at the toes. he stands on a walkway next the case for the torch

  • The former tennis player Serena Williams chose a red ruched dress from Dolce & Gabbana for the opening ceremony. Like many later on in the evening, she was forced to add a see-through plastic mac to her look after relentless rain struck.
    Serena Williams stands in front of the Eiffel Tower with her blonde hair in tight ringlets loose around her face. She wears a red ruched dress and looking directly at the camera

  • Aptly dressed in the city that brought us Moulin Rouge, Lady Gaga wore Dior for her opening ceremony performance, which was a celebration of cabaret. The look, designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri, was a nod to her song choice: a rendition of Zizi Jeanmaire’s Mon Truc en Plumes, which translates as ‘My Thing with Feathers’.
    Lady Gaga wears a strapless black bodysuit and black tights with her blonde hair in a tight bun. She stands with her arms outstretched, her eyes closed and one leg slightly bent as dancers dressed all in black shake pink and white feathers around her

  • Celine Dion performed Edith Piaf’s Hymne à l’Amour on the Eiffel Tower during the opening ceremony. Fittingly, she also wore a Dior gown, which was embroidered with thousands of pearls and more than 500 metres of beaded fringing.
    Celine Dion holds a microphone and points up at something behind her and she looks at the audience. She stands next to a rain-soaked black piano and is wearing a long, off-white dress with beaded fringing

  • Wicked co-stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo method-dressed their way through the opening ceremony, wearing an Elphaba-green Louis Vuitton dress and Glinda-pink Thom Browne dress as a nod to their forthcoming film.
    Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo stand in a sectioned-off area in front of the Eiffel Tower. Grande is wearing a light pink satin dress with a big skirt, pointed pink and white heels and a pink bow in her hair. She is holding hands with Erivo, who is wearing a green strapless satin dress with a wide skirt, pointed, shiny green shoes and a wide-brimmed green hat. Men either side of them stand holding large blue umbrellas

  • The French-Malian singer-songwriter Aya Nakamura performed a mashup of her songs Pookie and Djadja during the opening ceremony, also wearing Dior. She was accompanied by France’s Republican Guard.
    Aya Nakamura wears a short gold dress, gold shoes laced up her legs and a gold cape. She and four dancers, two either side of her, are dancing on stage. the dancers gold trainers, gold trousers, netted gold long-sleeved tops underneath cropped gold tops

  • Fifteen young French fashion designers were enlisted to help dress the performers in the opening ceremony, among them Jeanne Friot, the 29-year-old who created the Joan of Arc-esque armoured look for the Horsewoman. The idea, she told the New York Times, was to ‘give a lot of exposure to young Parisian designers, not just the big houses that we know’.
    A person walks along a silver walkway wearing thigh-high silver boots and a metallic armoured uniform. They are wearing a silver hood which covers their head and a flag with the Olympic rings as a cape. Spectators wearing plastic macs over their clothes wave flags next to the walkway

  • The shirt worn by one of Palestine’s flagbearers, the boxer Waseem Abu Sal, featured embroidery of bombs being dropped out of a sunny sky on to children playing football. Many of the delegation wore keffiyehs and held the Palestinian flag. “France doesn’t recognise Palestine as a country, so I am here to raise the flag,” the Palestinian swimmer Yazan Al-Bawwab told the Associated Press.
    On a boat on the River Seine, the Palestinian delegation wave their country’s flag. One person holds the pole of a larger flag. They are wearing white T-shirts and jackets and some have black and white keffiyehs around their necks

  • Team Liberia’s robes effortlessly married elements of sportswear with a distinct street-style aesthetic. Designed by the American-Liberian designer Telfar Clemens (famous for his Bushwick Birkins), the mesh sleeves were particularly arresting on-screen as they billowed in the wind.
    A woman smiles at the camera as she walks up a ramp. She is wearing a long black tunic with ‘Liberia’ written down the front and mesh sleeves

  • Thet Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, one of the flagbearers of Team United States, along with his teammates, wore outfits designed by Ralph Lauren for the opening ceremony. Some on social media were not happy, with one user on X commenting: ‘Dressing our best and brightest like 2003 Jay-Z.’
    LeBron James wears a cream blazer with red and navy edging and the Ralph Lauren logo of a polo player on a horse on the pocket. On the other side of the jacket is the United States Olympic Team logo. Underneath the blazer he wears a blue and white striped shirt and a navy blue tie, with faded blue jeans, dark sunglasses and a pink sash across his blazer that says ‘USA 2024’. Three teammates walk behind him wearing matching jeans, shirts and ties but with navy blue blazers. One of them holds a camcorder and is filming LeBron

  • A former intern of the late Virgil Abloh during his time at Louis Vuitton, Jan Černý has garnered much praise for his designs for the Czech Republic team. Their white plastic trenches were inspired by a traditional Czech baloňák coat. The aim, Černý told Time magazine, was ‘for the whole world to see how to be relevant as a small country’.
    On a boat on the Seine the rain-soaked Czech Republic team wave small flags and wave at spectators. Two people hold the pole of the larger Czech Republic flag. They are all wearing long white trench coats with splashes of blue

  • Members of Mongolia’s delegation wear the uniform that has, according to the internet, won the Olympics. Depicting motifs of Mongolia’s heritage and relationship to the Games in gold embroidery, the costumes are the work of Michel & Amazonka, a sister-run Ulaanbaatar-based label.
    Four people stand in front of the Eiffel Tower, lit up in the pouring rain. They are waving little Mongolian flags. The two women wear cream coloured pleated midi skirts, white pointed pumps and cream tops with gold detailing. The two men wear light grey trousers and grey and blue tops with gold detailing

  • For the opening ceremony, members of Team GB wore bomber jackets created by the British clothing brand Ben Sherman. A floral motif on the back of each jacket was designed to give a nod to each of the UK’s four nations. There’s a rose for England, a thistle for Scotland, a yellow daffodil for Wales and a shamrock for Northern Ireland.
    Four members of Team GB on a boat on the Seine. they are all wearing matching white bomber jackets with blue sleeves and the floral motif on the back. They are also wearing matching light blue trousers

  • ‘Creativity has no border, it’s a global passport,’ said the Haiti designer Stella Jean ahead of the ceremony. Here, Team Haiti is led by flagbearers Lynnzee Brown and Philippe Abel Metellus who wear the uniform that takes its white, red, and blue from the Haitian flag. The abstract work of local Haitian artist Philippe Dodard was printed on skirts and trousers.
    A boat on the Seine with a navy blue flag which says ‘Haiti’ in white. There are four people on the boat, one of whom is holding the pole of the large Haitian flag and three others are holding see-through dome umbrellas and waving smaller Haitian flags. The three men are wearing light blue jackets over white and blue shirts. The woman is wearing a tight-fitting white blazer with light blue arms over a light blue shirt. They are wearing multi-coloured loose trousers

  • Wearing a custom-made Fila jacket, baseball cap, chunky trainers and – perhaps most strikingly – her daughter’s elephant plushie on her belt, the South Korean pistol shooter Kim Yeji won silver but she arguably picked up gold in fashion. Her look went viral, with the Fila jacket now sought after. ‘[This] might have scored her the most aura points ever witnessed in a single image,’ wrote Dazed.
    A side view of Kim Yeji pointing a pistol at her target. She wears a white baseball cap with the South Korean flag on the side and a plain black jacket. An elephant head plushie hangs from her belt

  • Shooters are enjoying unlikely attention from fashion fans at these Olympics. YusufDikeç, representing Turkey in air pistol, became an online favourite for his nonchalant style. Observers noted he did not have the usual ear protection and wore ordinary glasses rather than specialised eye protection. This – plus the baggy T-shirt and hand in his pocket – have made him an icon of normcore style. And he won a silver medal to boot.
    Side view of Yusuf Dikeç competing in the Games wearing yellow earplugs, glasses, a white T-shirt and black trousers. He has one hand in his trouser pocket and holds the pistol in the other

  • Not content with winning an individual bronze medal and a gold medal for her team, horse rider Laura Collett got silver too – in a manner of speaking – with a helmet covered in a smattering of very glittery crystals. With horse riding more often seen as taking on an outdoorsy aesthetic, it was a very welcome disco-worthy element.
    Laura Collett competing on her horse. She wears black riding boots, white jodhpurs and a navy blue jacket. Her helmet has a strip of silver crystals across the top

  • The American gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik has strabismus, known as crossed eyes, so wears glasses when he is not competing. The image of an athlete in slightly academic-looking specs was appreciated by the internet, with his achievement of a bronze medal for his team seen as something of the revenge of the nerds. Nedoroscik delightfully lives up to type – he plays killer Sudoku and solves the Rubik’s Cube in his spare time.
    Stephen Nedoroscik is congratulated by his team after his performance. He is wearing rectangular glasses and a grey top with red, white and navy stripes

  • Japan’s skateboarding kit, featuring an ombré Eiffel Tower and designed by the American skateboarder Alexis Sablone, is a favourite of fashion. It grew in stature this week when skateboarder Yuto Horigome – who wears labels ranging from Supreme to Louis Vuitton off-duty – wore it to defend his gold medal in street skateboarding. Similar designs are now on resale sites for more than £200.
    Yuto Horigome wears a loose-fitting black T-shirt with a grey, pink and white design, black Nike tracksuit trousers and grey and white Nike trainers. He is wearing earbuds and is holds his skateboard in his hand

  • Nails have become a style story at the Paris Olympics, with Sha’Carri Richardson (inevitably) out in front. After patriotic nails for the opening ceremony, she had a brightly coloured jewelled design for her first racing appearance, winning her heat of the women’s 100 metres on Friday. We can expect another look for the much-anticipated final.
    Sha’Carri Richardson holds her hands up to display her very long, pointed nails. They are a mix of colours with yellow, black, white and red. Richardson is wearing a purple and white striped outfit, two short necklace chains and a watch with a red strap
Topics