Sulu, gho, kera, kalpak, dishdasha and dashiki sound more like crossword puzzlers than words in common parlance. Yet they are the names of elements of costumes that, for centuries, denoted national identity and are now taken out of cultural mothballs for the Olympics.
The less said the better about the theatrics of an opening ceremony that combined elements of Cirque du Soleil with a visit to Epcot to produce a spectacle with all the appeal of a public service announcement, one whose oddball highlight might have been the Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen's taking a victory lap in what was billed as her last-ever strut down a catwalk.
With her mile-long legs exposed in a sequined gold dress designed by her countryman Alexandre Herchcovitch and slit thigh high, the Victoria's Secret beauty Bündchen was not operating at a particularly high degree of difficulty - particularly given that her runway strut has seldom been surpassed.
To the strains of "The Girl From Ipanema," Bündchen walked across a stage in front of nearly 80,000 on-site spectators and millions of viewers around the planet. That was it. This viewer gave her a 10.
What eventually followed, after some dire but dull invocations of the threats of global warming, was the Parade of Nations - that wonderful and anachronistic Disneyesque march of athletes from around the world. It is their big moment. And for many Olympic qualifiers, it will be the only one.
Pride of nationality is a complicated matter, and conveying national identity is a challenge that would send most sensible fashion designers running. There are two default positions, and both were on offer at this Olympics ceremony. One is to outfit teams in such traditional garb as the Bhutanese gho, Austrian lederhosen or the Fijian sulu.
The other is, apparently, a piped rowing blazer paired with trousers or shorts. It worked in some cases, as in the jaunty aqua blazers worn by athletes from Aruba, and not in others. The mint-green striped blazers in which Australia's athletes were attired had been produced by the Sydney-based label Sportscraft and were paired with gold accessories. Even before the team came on the field at Maracanã Stadium, Twitter lit up with commentary about how much they resembled something that might be worn by Draco Malfoy and his Slytherin housemates. Nobody made much mention of the shoes by Toms.
Barbados had mango-coloured blazers. Bermuda went with classic navy, worn, of course, with Bermuda shorts. Spain had classic blue blazers with natty snap-brim hats. Canada had oddly blocky blazers produced by Dean and Dan Caten, the Milan-based, Canadian-born designers of DSquared2. Oddly, given the identical Caten twins' history of making body-revealing clothing, the uniforms had the formless look of high-end athleisure wear, generic but for the telltale maple leaf.
Led by Michael Phelps as flag bearer, the 554-member United States delegation appeared in blazers designed by Polo Ralph Lauren and worn over T-shirts whose striped bars, when the jackets were left fastened, bore an unfortunate resemblance to the Russian flag.
The jackets had electroluminescent panels able to light up a pocket emblem and the initials USA on the yoke. An early call to have all the athletes illuminated was scrapped as too ostentatious. In the end, only Phelps was an Olympics lightning bug.
That was too bad, as things turned out, since the gimmick barely registered amid the welter of face-painted extras and athletes from all nations who, almost as soon as they took the field, forgot all about citizenship and blended into an enormous scrum of wondrous physical specimens. There was commonality amid the blur of blended national affiliations. It took the form of an accessory that cuts across all boundaries and borders: the selfie stick.
© 2016 The New York Times News Service
