Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony
Role: Team Costume Designer
Costume Director: Minzheng Chen (陈敏正)
Director-in-Chief: Zhang Yimou (张艺谋)
Performance Venue: National Stadium (The Bird's Nest), Beijing, China
Project Scale: Global Live Broadcast / Mega-scale International Event
Team Design
Note on the Design Process:
The journey to the Olympic stadium required an exhaustive evolutionary process. Under the rigorous vision of the directing team, our work encompassed hundreds of distinct design variations and technical sketches to explore every nuance of movement, light, and cultural symbolism.
Due to strict official confidentiality protocols (NDA), only a highly curated selection of these conceptual renderings can be publicly displayed here. The sketches shown below represent just a fraction of the extensive creative iterations that laid the groundwork for the final Olympic stage.
The Tiger-Head Hat — Cultural Metamorphosis & Color Ideation
Integration of Heritage (Hebei Yuxian Paper-Cutting): For the visual iconography of the tiger, we bypassed standard graphic embroidery and anchored the design in the National Intangible Cultural Heritage of Hebei Yuxian Paper-Cutting (河北蔚县剪纸).
The Vernal Shift (Initial Concept): The original sketches featured a White and Green palette. This design choice was deeply poetic, engineered to symbolize "the arrival of Spring after a long Winter"—capturing the essence of renewal and vitality.
As the overarching stage direction evolved, the palette was refined into a crisp Blue and White scheme. This shift aligned perfectly with the pure, kinetic energy of ice and snow, elevating the costume into a seamless extension of the Olympic winter landscape.
From Conceptual Geometry to Physical Reality
My Core Contributions:
Creative Development: Conceptualized and developed costume designs for pivotal performance segments
Technical R&D & Production: Led high-fidelity prototyping and supervised mass industrial production
On-site Creative Direction: Acted as On-site Costume Director at the National Stadium (The Bird's Nest); managed elite technical workflows during live rehearsals to guarantee flawless visual consistency.
Final Performance Showcase