As Olympic athletes take to the ice rinks of Milan and the mountains of Cortina this week, fashion and apparel brands are gearing up for a competition of their own.
The Winter Olympics offer a unique opportunity for brands to put their winter gear — an increasingly important category — on a global stage. But with strict Olympic rules limiting most advertising during the Games to official sponsors, those outside that select few must get more creative to take advantage of the moment.
Outfitting teams and athletes is the go-to strategy; Armani is dressing the Italian national team, Lululemon is doing Canada and Adidas is outfitting seven teams including Great Britain and Germany. Other brands are finding creative ways to share the spotlight, whether that’s through creative deals with unique partners or making moves on the periphery of the competition altogether.
This high-stakes branding battle is fueled by a global explosion in the winterwear market. Nowhere is this boom more evident than in China, where snow-fever following the 2022 Olympics in Beijing transformed winter sports from an elite pastime into a national economic engine. The country is home to about 750 active ski resorts, a more than 50 percent jump in the past decade, according to a white paper published by the chairman of a resort near Beijing, creating a new consumer class that wants to look the part while on the slopes.
“While the sponsorship of the Italian team is rooted in national identity, the visibility of the Olympic Games has a global impact,” said Armani chief executive Giuseppe Marsocci, which will dress athletes in its EA7 Emporio Armani sportswear line. “This sponsorship is not simply about visibility … The winter and mountain categories are increasingly important. Clients today expect technical performance without compromising style.”
There’s plenty of precedent. The Olympics have long been an in-demand marketing opportunity for fashion, and that’s only grown over time. The 2024 Paris Olympics, fashion’s biggest yet, in particular provide a blueprint. LVMH served as the Games’ title sponsor, a role that made its brands visible across the games, from the Louis Vuitton trunks featured in the opening ceremonies to the Chaumet-designed medals that hung from Olympians’ necks. More than that alone, brands including luxury players like Jacquemus and Lacoste to players like DTC swimwear label Left on Friday to mass retailer J.Crew got involved as well.
Milano Cortina has the potential to be even more impactful, considering the growing importance of winter sports to fashion’s bottom line.
“Watch the space,” said Kerryn Foster, Adidas GM of Specialist Sports. “I think the winter sports area and Olympics will continue to grow in importance within the brand.”
Working Around the Guidelines
For those outside of the Olympics’ official sponsor roster, finding ways to market around the Olympics is more “complicated,” said Foster.
At the heart of the commercial tension is the International Olympic Committee’s Rule 40, which mandates a blackout period that restricts athletes from using their name, image or performance in advertisements for non-Olympic sponsors, this year from Jan. 30 to Feb. 24.
Rule 40 has been relaxed to some degree in recent years — in 2016, athletes were allowed to appear in generic ads for the first time six months ahead of the Games. Brands are now able to run generic advertising and social content around the event. Still though, navigating this is a strategic balancing act: failing to comply can result in financial penalties or an athlete’s disqualification, while over-compliance risks losing the peak moment of global visibility.
One workaround is to spotlight gear they create for the opening and closing ceremonies, competition and even just time spent around the Olympic village, which is likely to show up on social media. For the Milano Cortina games, Adidas created 700 pieces for its Olympic roster of seven nations, most of which will be showcased organically through the Games. Adidas also has a dedicated unit that will curate social posts and create content for its individually sponsored athletes in the competition.
Another opportunity comes in the form of a pilot project the IOC launched in 2024, which allows a handful of brands — this year, 30 — to use official Olympic imagery and hashtags in their own social media content.
Oakley, an official sponsor for several federations, including Canada, New Zealand and Finland, is also included in the IOC’s pilot group of brands.
“We can’t necessarily go and say, ‘Hey, this athlete’s wearing this product,’ however, we can congratulate athletes for wins on social media,” said Corey Hill, global head of sports marketing at Oakley. That ability alone, he added, will grant the brand a level of visibility that it hasn’t normally had during the Games.
Becoming an official Olympic sponsor carries the most benefit potential — but it’s also a very demanding role.
Salomon inked a deal in 2023 with the Milano Cortina Games to become the competition’s official sponsor, supplying technical apparel for the event’s 18,000 volunteers, staff, and torchbearers. More than 400,000 pieces were produced, including uniforms, jackets and footwear. Scott Mellin, Salomon’s global chief brand officer, said the effort is worth it because Salomon can tap the winter sports boom and position its heritage within the Winter Olympics.
“When I came in in 2022 we were global total 5 percent, now we’re 30 percent. I want to get that to 45 percent after the games,” said Scott Mellin, Salomon’s global chief brand officer. “There’s a lot of product and a lot of logos in the marketplace, and that won’t go unseen.”
Cheering From the Sidelines
For many brands, the goal is less about outfitting the athletes than being part of the Olympic conversation and experience — especially for fans.
Off Season, for example, an NFL fanwear brand founded in January 2025 by Kristin Juszczyk and Emma Grede, launched a collaboration with Team USA in partnership with Fanatics and the NFL to create a winter lifestyle capsule. While licensed to use Team USA branding in the capsule, Off Season’s goal is to show up beyond the “podium moment,” said Juszczyk, by getting fans to represent Team USA both at home and in Milan.
And while the brand won’t be activating during the Games, its social media announcement of the capsule gained instant traction — it was Off Season’s most engaged post of all time, also receiving comments from several Olympians.
While Canadian retailer Roots hasn’t served as the country’s official Olympic sponsor since 2004, it uses the time leading up to and during the games to promote its annual Canada collection, complete with the brand’s signature beaver-adorned sweatshirts and sweatpants and a “Northern Roots” varsity jacket lined with a snowy mountainscape print.
Without actually referencing the Olympics anywhere in its marketing, the brand used slogans like “Rooting for Canada,” its historic associations with the Games and the general excitement about the country — which has received a recent boost thanks to hit hockey romance TV series “Heated Rivalry” — to spark attention. Fanwear collections also give brands the opportunity to make a broader audience feel involved, both at home and abroad.
“We always think about that dynamic of sporting games, they’re not just about the person playing it,” said Roots chief executive Meghan Roach. “It’s about the before and after. It’s about the people supporting them and getting them there.”
J.Crew, similarly, followed up its 2024 collaboration with USA Swimming with a partnership with US Ski and Snowboard; multiple pieces sold out within 24 hours.
Post-Games
For fashion-forward brands looking to the Olympics as a marketing opportunity to work with the athletes themselves, many consider the post-Games period to be the most important. That’s the time to latch on to unexpected breakout stars, who are impossible to predict ahead of time.
For the athletes themselves, their commercial potential goes beyond what they do in competition. American rugby player Ilona Maher, for example, won a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics and also gained notoriety for her funny behind-the-scenes, viral TikTok videos in the Olympic village. From there, she earned partnerships with Adidas, Maybelline and Paula’s Choice.
And with Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks set to follow immediately after — the closing ceremonies are Feb. 22 while Milan Fashion Week starts on Feb. 24 — there’s ample opportunity for brands to line their front rows (or runways) with top competitors.
“You really want to gain an audience that isn’t just watching you for skiing, you want to get an audience watching you for beauty tips, clothing, because that’s really how you become marketable,” said Madison Smith, co-founder of talent agency Smith&Saint.
