The International Olympic Committee staged its first opening ceremony fashion show in Milan on Feb. 4, bringing together roughly 20 national teams to preview their Milano Cortina 2026 looks. Finland’s collection by Luhta drew on Lapland’s blue twilight hours.
Finnish sportswear brand Luhta presented Olympic Team Finland’s opening ceremony outfits at an International Olympic Fashion Show in Milan on Feb. 4 – the first time the IOC has organised such an event to showcase national team apparel ahead of a Winter Olympics.
Approximately twenty countries participated in the fashion show at Piazza Sempione, in the heart of Milan’s fashion and business district. The crossover between sports, fashion and lifestyle will be one of the hallmarks of the Milano Cortina 2026 Games – a way to connect the Olympic movement with audiences beyond traditional sports followers.
Luhta used the platform to position Finnish sportswear within this expanded cultural frame, treating the collection as an opportunity to communicate national identity through design rather than purely functional performance credentials. The brand translated Finnish landscape and cultural elements into visual language intended to work both on the catwalk and at the opening ceremony.
Lapland-inspired design language
Luhta’s collection for the Finnish Olympic and Paralympic teams centres on what the company describes as the “blue moment” in Finnish Lapland—when sunset light transforms the landscape into blue-toned shades. “When the sun sets in the North, the last rays of the day paint the sky and the surrounding nature in magnificent shades of blue, transforming the landscape into something magical,” said Division Director Jeri Luhtanen. “We wanted to capture this unique moment in the collection designed for the Finnish team.”
Mixing disciplines and experiences
Media personality and former luger Janne Saarinen and Paralympic equestrian Laura Kangasniemi walked the catwalk for Luhta, both appearing at a Milan fashion show for the first time. The pairing combined summer and winter sports, Olympic and Paralympic pathways, and different athletic journeys under shared sporting values. Kangasniemi competed at the Paris 2024 Paralympics and was reportedly the only Paralympic athlete on the catwalk.
Our SGIE Take
The IOC-organized fashion show represents a format shift for how national Olympic committees and their commercial partners activate around opening ceremonies. Traditionally, opening ceremony outfits generate attention primarily through media coverage on ceremony day. Together with the initiative that reshaped the Olympic Charter Rule 40, events like these offer welcome visual storytelling moments.
For Luhta, the Milan presentation offered a new type of visibility for a brand already exporting to over 50 countries, with Central Europe, France, the Netherlands and Italy among its main territories outside Finland. For the participants, it provided a new way to enjoy the days before the winter games begin and draw inspiration from the Nordic aesthetics of one of Scandinavia’s most distinctive brands.
The Milano-Cortina fashion show has been designed to make memories, just as the Luhta brand says about itself. We look forward to more of these memorable moments, starting with the Opening Ceremony on Friday, Feb. 6.
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