Fashion.at

9 July 2024

Annotation on July 11, 2024: The Olympic Team Austria has grown to 81 athletes. The 26-year-old badminton player Collins Valentine Filimon was given the 'go' to take part in the Olympic Games in Paris. The Romanian-born athlete, who became an Austrian citizen on June 20, was on the waiting list for the Olympic ticket. Filimon had to wait for the results of the singles and doubles rankings.

The Austrian Olympic Committee presented the athletes of the Austrian Olympic Team for Paris with a focus on gender parity and their outfits


Fashion.at visited the press conference of the Austrian Olympic Committee (ÖOC) with the latest news about the Austrian Olympic Team, the Austria House and the outfits of the athletes. The event took place at the Marriott Hotel in Vienna and was attended by the Austrian Minister of Defense, Klaudia Tanner, who made a tour of the product stands of the outfitters.

The Champions Sports Bar in the hotel at the Parkring was filled to capacity. The ranks of journalists, TV reporters and their colleagues at the cameras and sound desks were dominated by men, with a few women in between who could be counted on one hand. This differs from the gender distribution in professional sports, as presented today by the Austrian Olympic Committee (ÖOC). The participation of women and men at the highest level of sport in Austria is almost equal: 43 men and 37 women will participate in the Olympic Games in Paris. The athletes come from all nine federal states of the country and will compete in 26 disciplines. The expectations are to bring home five to ten medals, but also all other places are a strong statement for a healthy performance mentality, as it was stated at the press conference. ÖOC President Karl Stoss pointed out that these Olympic Games will be historic. They are the first games in history with gender parity, an important signal to the world.

Austria has large teams in several disciplines such as sailing, swimming and judo. Judo was also represented at today's press conference by an athlete, Michaela Polleres, who will carry the Austrian flag together with canoeist Felix Oschmautz. Both athletes have participated in the Olympic Games in previous years. Polleres won the silver medal at the 2020 Olympics; Oschmautz finished fourth at the 2020 Olympics.

After the conference, Fashion.at visited the area where the athletes will receive their outfits today and tomorrow, packed in a large Erima suitcase. The outfits of the labels Erima, Adelsberger in cooperation with G'weih & Silk and Salomon were chosen under the aspect of a gender-neutral approach in style, with differences such as that the women will mainly wear a traditional leather skirt and the men a traditional lederhose for the opening. The white shirt and beige vests are made in the same look for both with slight differences in the tailoring to fit the body. Adelsberger by G'weih & Silk offers female athletes and team members the option of wearing lederhosen as an alternative to skirts in the same used lederhosen look as men, but cut for women. The Salzburg-based retailer Adelsberger, together with G'Weih & Silk, began developing outfits for the opening at the beginning of 2023. From a series of designs, the ÖOC selected a look that pays homage to the country's traditional clothing, referencing the style of hunters in Austria's alpine environment. Flora and fauna are also part of the leather pants, with details such as a roaring stag on the belt buckle of the men's trousers and climbing plant embroidery on the pant legs. The buttons are made of staghorn.

A special highlight of the Erima collection is the black and gray mélange shirt made of a cooling fabric woven from a composition of merino-bamboo blend and recycled polyester. The reason for using recycled polyester is to keep the fabric durable and in shape. Fashion.at spoke with Erima about the design of the shirt, which was initiated in early 2023 at the request of the ÖOC. The development of the special cooling fabric and design was completed in early 2024 and is the heart of the collection. Another advantage of the shirt is that it can be worn with the goat skin skirt and lederhosen, adding an urban-sporty look to the trachten outfit.

The shoe equipment provided by Salomon shows only slight differences in the coloring of six models between the sexes. Each athlete will receive three styles, including the Reelax sandals.

Organizations such as the Austrian National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), the Austrian Center for Gender Competence for fairness in sport and diversity, and VERA, a hotline against harassment and violence, used the event to present their year-round activities to raise awareness among young athletes about fair play in sport.

Image taken on July 9, 2024 at the press conference of the Austrian Olympic Committee ÖOC at the Marriott Hotel in Vienna: The picture shows the Austrian Minister of Defense Klaudia Tanner and the CEO of 'Adelsberger Modehaus' Bernhard Adelsberger (the Salzburg based fashion house with a focus on alpine clothing and trachten is owned by the family in the third generation) standing at the table with the lederhosen and skirts for women, which were designed and produced in cooperation with 'G'weih & Silk'.

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