Input Stories

Thanks to a small Pennsylvania manufacturer, every member of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team in Paris for the Olympics has a set of leotards with more than 47,000 crystals in total (The Washington Post, subscription).

What’s going on: Every gymnast on the team has eight Olympic leotards that are “the result of a two-year process headed by GK Elite, a leotard company and partner of USA Gymnastics. It reached a dramatic unveil when the athletes received boxes with all eight leotards the day after they earned spots on the U.S. Olympic team.”

• The retail price of each leotard is about $3,000.
• This year’s designs include “obvious nods to the American flag” and tributes to Parisian fashion and art.

How they’re made: First, several layers of fabric are cut into the right shape according to a pattern, minimizing waste.

• Next comes sublimation, during which designs are printed on paper and heat-transferred to the fabric. After heating to 450 degrees, a machine “turns the ink into a gas and fuses it into the fabric,” according to GK Elite Director of Marketing Erica Schnebel.
• Then multiple fabric pieces are first fastened together with a “temporary glue,” then sewn, after which the USA Gymnastics and GK Elite logos are embroidered on the leotards.
• A rhinestone-transfer machine lays out crystals onto heat-transfer paper, and then the stones are stuck to the fabric via a heat-activated glue. Some crystals, however, must be put on by workers using tweezers.
• Finally, the front and back of each leotard is sewn together at the sides, top and bottom.

Crystal explosion: “Crystal usage has exploded over the past two decades, thanks to improving technology and machinery.”

• Some leotards now boast as many as 10,000—and the large number of stones is the main reason why these Olympic leotards cost so much.