Mary Lu Toms, a successful Toronto retailer, says the uniforms "will have a mental effect on the athletes wearing them. It's like when you dress for any fashion event. What you wear dictates the way you feel. Whether you put on a sexy dress or an androgynous pantsuit -- people wear costumes to give credibility to what they want to be."
On the ski slopes last spring, Olympic racers Darin McBeath and Thomas Grandi tested the Vortex C1 suits and found them to be "much faster" than the traditional suits.
McBeath hasn't actually seen the official Olympic design yet but his girlfriend has. "She asked me if she could make it into a dress after I was done with it, so it must have some appeal ... I don't think she was kidding."
Last Saturday, at a World Cup race in Germany, Canadian skier Genevieve Simard wore a suit made from the same Vortex fabric she'll be wearing for her first Olympics. "The texture is a little different. But to be honest, I don't really think about what I'm wearing, just what I'm doing," says Simard from the slopes in Cortina, Italy prepping for her Super-G race tomorrow and Giant Slalom on Sunday.
Read, who has worn many racing suits throughout his career, says the real breakthrough in technology came in 1979 with The Descente Magic Suit. Think men in tights.
"It was made from bodybags. The form-fitting fabric adhered to the skier like they had been dipped in a pot of paint. Prior to that, suits were thick and bulky with creases all over them."
Read says he remembers in the early '70s when they wore plastic suits that were only legal for one World Cup and then immediately banned. "If you fell you didn't stop because they were so slick."
Over the last 25 years Read says that popular Canadian Olympic ski uniforms were the barber pole look in 1984 and the "dimpled" golf ball suit of 1998.
"But every youngster today who ski races -- and there are about 10,000 across Canada -- is going to want to have a speed suit," says Read, adding, "Descente is currently working closely with ski associations to market the Vortex suit."
