Aug 26, 2024 • innovation

A Designer’s Debrief: Jacqueline King on the Paris Olympics and Paralympics 2024

Design Director Jacqueline King dishes out what it’s been like creating clothing for Olympians and Paralympians for this year’s Paris Games.

by Justin Korn

Jacqueline King—or Jacqui as she’s known around campus—sits in a neighboring building from where I usually set up shop with my laptop at our Herzogenaurach, Germany headquarters. The building is aptly named Laces for its bridges that zigzag overhead and is home to many of our designers. For the last two years, Jacqui has been hard at work dressing Olympians and Paralympians to look and feel their best in the City of Light.

For this year’s summer Olympics, she’s been on a quest to unite athletes with a single design story. I had the chance to talk to Jacqui about her experience designing clothes for the Olympics in between trips to Paris. Here are some excerpts from our chat. And if you’re a designer or graphic designer of any level who wants to join Jacqui for the next summer Olympics and Paralympics federation kits in Los Angeles, she urges you to look out for internships on our jobs board.

To kick things off, can you share a little about your background at adidas?

Sure, I joined the company almost ten years ago and worked on the Sportswear side of the company for the majority of that time. Then, about two and a half years ago, I took a temporary contract and made a big jump into the Performance side of the brand, which is how I am now in specialty sports and heading up the sports marketing service unit (SMSU) design team. I didn’t know at that time how big and crazy it would get, but I was up for a challenge and a change in my career.

How did you get involved in the Olympics and Paralympics?

The SMSU design team is the team that is in charge of the Olympics, and they work very closely with sports marketing (SPOMA). So, we work on all projects that SPOMA is involved in. It’s a lot of team kit and event work, including the Boston, Berlin Marathons, and Federation team kits—Olympics is by far the biggest and most visible project.

Did you know then that you would design apparel for the Olympics and Paralympics, or was that a surprise?

Yeah, that was a big part of the interview. They were looking for someone to project manage the Olympics and take over SMSU. Much of what they wanted was a large part of what I did in my previous role, like working on super quick projects and being very close to the customer. And so, it fit my previous skillsets—but it’s definitely on steroids here.

And what is it like to work and collaborate with the National Olympic Committees (NOC) and National Paralympic Committees (NPC)?

There are a whole host of teams involved because we designed for each of the NOCs and NPCs. We’re have eleven National Olympic Committees and seven National Paralympic Committees. So, there are a lot of different teams with very different needs that we’re talking to, and we are really happy to have such great relationships with the athletes. Working with those partners very closely allows us access to athletes, which is what everything is based on.

We start by being briefed by the Olympic committees and then talking directly to the athletes about what worked last time, what didn’t, and what they want from this kit. Then comes the adidas strategy and what we want to do as a brand, and we try to merge all that together. This time, we came up with this idea of the “fire from within,” this kind of passion of athletes, and that drive that pushes them to compete at such a high level and train on a daily basis.

So fire plays a really big role in this year’s events. How did you get the sign-off from the countries?

That was really our story, and we knew we had hit gold on that when we had this really simple idea that we could translate onto the outside of the garments. Then we took that back to the countries for a concept sign-off and we showed them some of the initial visuals and initial storytelling. We took any feedback, and then we went back to them around three months later with the sketches.

How did you go about adding country identities to that adidas concept of “fire from within”?

We use a lot of country imagery. Colors, of course, play a huge part, and we have detailed discussions about what those colors should be. Then, it all goes off for production. When we get the samples in, we invite the countries to the campus again to show them all the samples in order to get the range fully signed off.

A big part of your design concept is the universal design principles. Can you go into a little detail about that?

That’s maybe what I’m most proud of from Paris ‘24.

We had a lot of discussions in the research phase. We talked a lot with Paralympians, and we realized there was a lot more we could do for them following the last Olympics. So we went to town, deep diving into how we could make the product better for them. And we came up with three key principles that we wanted to stick to.

The first one is that it’s one team; there should be no visual difference between the Olympics and Paralympics. They want garment-for-garment, exactly the same.

The second principle is that we can actually do a lot with garments by making use of the patterns that we already have; that could be making them longer or shorter, and this covers a lot of what athletes are asking for. If you’re an athlete who’s seated in a wheelchair, you just need your pants a few inches longer, so your ankles are not on show all the time, and it’s simple.

And then the last point is about conscious design. There are a few key things that we can implement in the range and across all styles that would enable all our Paralympians to also enjoy the collection and feel comfortable, and that might be things as easy as adjusting cuff and hem openings, things like elastic are not very good if you’re trying to put your pants on over prosthetic legs. So, if you just open the hems, it’s much easier for them. Also, this includes graphic placement; anything low down on the arms or down on the legs may not be visible for athletes who have a limb deficiency.

These are quite simple ideas that we can apply to the entire kit to make the product a bit easier.
So, in the end, we ended up with 81% of the product universally designed. It works for all athletes and I’m very proud of this.

That sounds amazing. Not only do you adjust the fits, so everyone feels comfortable, but you create the apparel that tells the story of the country—and you also manage to cater to athletes across sports. How are you able to do that? I’m assuming there’s tons of feedback you’re working with.

Yes, and tons of complicated range planning. I would have to really thank my marketeers for being on top of that. Our role is to amplify what the brand has created and color that into team kits for the proudest moments of adidas or premium sports events. We’re showcasing the work that is done by the wider brand.

After all the behind the scenes work leading up to the events in Paris, how did it feel seeing athletes up close wearing your fits in action, on the podium, and walking around the Olympic village? Especially since you were also in the adidas House, in the thick of it all, surrounded by your peers and the athletes—that must have been like being in sports heaven.  

Seeing it in real life is still surreal. I am so proud of the team who worked together on this project. We were lucky enough to be in adidas House Paris collecting feedback on the Paris24 kit, ready to implement into LA28 (Los Angeles Summer Olympics, which takes place in 2028) – Yes we are already on to the next one.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 