The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is in full swing, and behind the athletes working hard and achieving great results in the arena, there are a large number of volunteers and staff of the Winter Olympic Village who have quietly contributed to ensure the smooth operation of the service work in the service operation area in the Winter Olympic Village.
Ruixue white with three rainbow stripes symmetrical on the left and right, fresh blue and white color matching, bright spring yellow, volunteers and staff wearing different theme overalls are also a flowing landscape. The clothing they wore was all “protective overalls” designed by the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology.
How to highlight professional attributes and functional needs in dress, and at the same time provide health protection for staff and volunteers in the closed loop during the Winter Olympics? A number of teachers and students of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology formed a creative team to deeply study the needs of clothing, carry out derivative design from the characteristics of workwear, and make three program adjustments, and finally present functional clothing styles and ready-to-wear design schemes in four work categories, including guidance, accommodation, catering and waste removal.
On February 9, the three main creators of the design team of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology were interviewed by a reporter from the Beijing News to reveal the design concept behind the workwear.
Around the elements of the Winter Olympics, it reflects traditional Chinese aesthetics
The “Double Olympic City” themed workwear designed by Guo Yucheng, a teacher of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, is mainly used in various scenarios such as guidance, consultation and service.
Guo Yucheng introduced that the design of the overalls revolves around “Beijing and the Olympics”, the color of the clothing adopts a large area of Ruixue white, with the front placket printed with the “BEIJING2022” Winter Olympics text graphic as the visual central axis, and three oblique rainbow stripes symmetrically presented on the left and right sides, showing the unique upright beauty of Chinese design.
“Double Olympic City” theme workwear is mainly used in guidance, consultation, service and other scenarios. Photo courtesy of interviewee
Among them, the color of the rainbow stripes is taken from the Olympic rings, with the dazzling effect of gradient smudging and the linear graphics of the avenue to simplicity, to express the color change of Beijing, the city of two Olympic Games, from summer to winter.
The “Ice and Snow Chasing Dreams” themed overalls designed by Xu Bo, a teacher at Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, are mainly used in housekeeping scenarios.
The “Ice and Snow Dream” themed overalls are mainly used in room service scenes, and the back is bonded with velcro for easy wearing and taking off without pollution. Photo courtesy of interviewee
“Considering that the protagonists in the Winter Olympic Village are athletes, the clothing patterns of the service staff should not be too many as possible, and simple color blocks are used to express the clothing.” Xu Bo said that the color of the clothing chose the blue and white colors representing ice and snow sports, which echoed the theme color of the Beijing Winter Olympics, and the visual experience was fresh and comfortable, so that the wearer could better integrate into practical scenes such as hotel rooms in the Winter Olympic Village, which was conducive to shortening the psychological distance between the staff and the athletes from all over the world.
The “Building a Dream for the Future” themed workwear designed by Wan Lan, a teacher from Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, is mainly used in catering service scenarios and garbage removal and transportation scenarios.
“Building a dream for the future” theme workwear is mainly used in catering service scenarios and garbage removal and transportation scenarios. Photo courtesy of interviewee
Wan Lan introduced, when it comes to catering industry practitioners, people will naturally emerge the professional image and representative color of the chef, the chef’s clothing in international practice is white as the identification color, both representing “clean”, but also symbolizing ice and snow, in order to better reflect the Winter Olympic elements, she also chose the Olympic color system in the red plum and azure color as the apron part of the color, in the visual effect is softer and more comfortable, more affinity.
Meet the functionality and have certain protection functions
In addition to meeting the needs of visual appearance, work clothes must also play a basic protective role for workers in the closed loop.
“For the protection function, whether to use Class A (medical) protection or B (civilian) protection, although the higher the degree of protection, the better, but is it suitable for specific scenarios? Is the image presentation appropriate? Wan Lan introduced that on this issue, experts from the National Health Commission also demonstrated and gave suggestions, choosing to use Class B protection, that is, civil protection, mainly work clothes, and has certain protective functions.
Guo Yucheng said that in terms of design, clothing should be coordinated with functionality and protection.
He explained that functionality includes two aspects, one is job identification; The second is to meet the human body movement, that is, to meet the activity needs of volunteers and staff in the basic work scene of the Winter Olympic Village.
In terms of protection, the clothing is mainly made of SMS medical protective clothing special fabrics. Among them, the first layer adopts double-layer spunbond non-woven fabric, which is composed of polyester and polypropylene, which has good firmness and wear resistance. The middle layer adopts double-layer meltblown cloth, which has good filtering and shielding. The common mask is the meltblown non-woven material used to ensure air permeability and shield the virus, while achieving thermal insulation effect. The final layer is spunbond nonwovens, which is composed of multiple layers that, in addition to being wear-resistant and firm, can also achieve visual balance and skin-friendliness.
The reporter learned that the fabrics of “work clothes with protective function” are all independently developed in China, mainly using PP coated non-woven fabrics and SMS medical protective clothing special fabrics, and for different work scenarios, the clothing fabrics used are also different.
Xu Bo led the design of “ice and snow chasing dreams” themed overalls, the top is made of PP coated non-woven fabric, the bottom is made of SMS fabric, waterproof, oil-free and strong, so as to facilitate volunteers to complete a series of actions such as shaking sheets, clearing the ground, transporting garbage, bending over and squatting.
Xu Bo said that although the main work scene of room service staff is indoors, the temperature is basically maintained above 20 degrees Celsius, but their work content also includes transporting garbage to the outdoors, the working space involves indoor to outdoor switching, and they are not allowed to add clothes halfway, so the material of the top is relatively thick, which is to consider the protective nature of the clothes, as well as the windproof and warm characteristics of temperature switching back and forth.
Although the fabric has “multiple layers”, another characteristic it has is “lightness”. Guo Yucheng introduced that this is also the better work clothes technology, and its technical breakthrough points have achieved a light and thin weight limit, reflecting the characteristics of the Science and Technology Winter Olympics.
The design of Wanlan adopts the simplest, most convenient and most practical concept. Its “Building a Dream for the Future” themed workwear is made of disposable medical coated isolation clothing fabric, which is light, economical and harmless to handle more conveniently, reflecting the concept of thrifty competition.
Weakens tension and makes it easy to put on and take off
The reporter learned that the difficulty of this project is that it is necessary to design work clothes with protective functions, but the appearance cannot be similar to the common medical one-piece protective clothing, giving people a sense of oppression and tension.
In people’s stereotype, epidemic prevention staff are dressed in white clothing, hats and goggles, and when people see many volunteers in white protective suits lining up in line to enter and exit, engaged in volunteer work, it is visually nervous.
In this regard, Xu Bo optimized the appearance of the clothing in design, and the color of the clothing chose the blue and white colors representing ice and snow sports, and the overall look was relatively clean.
From the style point of view, the advantage of the jumpsuit is good sealing, but the defect is that the traces of the protective clothing are too heavy, and there is a protective clothing in the national standard that can also be designed as a body, therefore, referring to the national standard, Xu Bo designed the “ice and snow chasing dreams” theme work clothes as upper and lower doppelganger styles.
The catering work clothes designed by Wan Lan adopt the international “apron” design, which combines the disposable isolation overwear and the apron in an orderly manner, highlighting the service attributes and weakening the sense of distance and tension brought by the epidemic prevention clothing.
The reporter learned that in the design process, the team members of the Beijing Service also investigated the workflow of the staff in the closed loop of the Olympic Village, in order to avoid secondary contact during the wearing and taking off process, the convenience of putting on and taking off should be considered when designing.
“As far as the guide clothing is concerned, the silhouette structure of the garment combines ergonomics to achieve the specific work scene needs of comfortable wearing and easy to put on and take off.” Guo Yucheng said. The “Building a Dream for the Future” themed overalls designed by Wan Lan are in the form of a covering, which is convenient for the staff to operate with one hand.
Beijing News reporter Su Ji proofreader Liu Baoqing
