Today we were watching the Olympic Finals in Big Air, an amazing snowboarding sport. Doug kept saying “OMG! Look at that jump!” Me? I was saying “OMG! Look at that coat!” The Canadian team wore the most fantastic coats, and as a knitter I couldn’t drag my eyes away. Here is Seb Toutant, who won gold for Canada:
Sebastien Toutant, of Canada, celebrates after winning the gold medal in the men’s Big Air. Photo: Matthias Schrader/Associated Press
A little research on the internet reveals that the coats were made by Burton, who provided the Canadian snowboarding uniforms. This article, from Snowboard Canada’s site, says:
“There are four different symbols that make up this uniform: the raven, bear, orca, sun and moon. One is on each jacket. The jackets are replicas of sweaters that were hand-knit by Granted Sweater Company based in Richmond, British Colombia. The artwork on the sweaters was designed by Corrine Hunt, who was born in Alert Bay, British Columbia and hails from the same village as Spencer O’Brien. Corrine has been creating contemporary art that reflects the themes and traditions of her First Nations Komoyue and Tlingit heritage for more than 24 years. She also co-designed the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic gold, silver and bronze medals.”
Here is a photo, from the same article, of Corrine Hunt with some of the collection:
Corrine Hunt at the Canadian Olympic Snowboard Uniform Unveiling, Toronto – photo by Cait Caulfield 2017
I love these jackets! You can actually see each stitch from the original sweaters.
“Once the designs were complete, Burton used a unique digital printing process and transferred the artwork directly onto the jacket’s technical, stretch 3L fabric. They used a high resolution photograph of each of the sweater panels and created an stunning replica of the hand-knit sweaters. You can actually see the wool fibres on the jackets’ print.”
Click on the link to the Snowboard Canada site to see lots more photos of these fantastic coats and some discussion from the designer, Corrine Hunt.
Now that we’ve admired the coats, OMG! Look at that jump!:
Sebastien Toutant photo: Steve Russell/Toronto Star
Thank you for doing the research! I, too, was exclaiming over the jacket as my husband enjoyed the jumps. First reaction is always to wonder whether there’s some cultural appropriation here, although hard to believe the Olympics team would do that nowadays – glad to see the designer is First Nations. I see Granted also sells kits with patterns. Thanks again.
I hadn’t noticed that Granted was selling kits for the sweaters. Thanks for the tip!
ah, I used to work for Burton and while I’m not good at snowboarding, I find the sport, especially the half pipe speciality, amazing. So I’d probably come up with “Look at that jump” first… and then “Look at that coat”, despite loving knitted items 😉
By the way, did you see the young lady’s (Chloe Kim) winning ride on the half pipe? She’s amazing! (sorry, it’s not knitting-related, I know..)
I did indeed. The snowboarding events were pretty mind-blowing. I’ve been sick with a bad flu for two weeks so I ended up watching quite a bit of the Olympics, while I was up coughing in the middle of the night.
I hope you’re on your way to full recovery. Thanks for sharing the jackets!
Love these snowboarder coats designed by Corrine Hunt and your post, Kelly!
HI Joanna! I hear that you’ve just had a big snow in Vancouver. I hope you got to throw a snowball or two.