Adam Rippon is Team USA’s most outspoken competitor — and he channels that brazenness in his skating costumes, too.
When it comes to fashion, “Adam is interested in a lot of things that all the other guys seem to be afraid of,” LA-based designer Braden Overett tells The Post. That means bright colors, bling — and skintight mesh, which Overett calls Rippon’s “spirit fabric.”
“He tells me, ‘I want to be scandalous. I want to be slutty!’ Which I take to mean exposed and sheer and strong and” — Overett searches for the word — “delicious.”
Braden, who was friends with Rippon long before their designing days, dutifully followed that directive for Rippon’s costumes this year. In fact, Rippon’s long-program costume, a blue-and-black top he wore to the team event, came out even more “delicious” than he’d initially intended.
“I was airbrushing black and blue paint onto this white mesh base,” he says, “and I was super excited about the sharp, dynamic contrast of the black on the white.” But when the paint dried, Braden found, to his horror, that the black-painted sections somehow looked even sheerer than before he’d painted. “I held my hand beneath it, and it was like a window.”
But Rippon, of course, loved it. And now, Overett finds himself catching compliments for his happy mistake. “People keep telling me they really like the gold accents I included in the costume,” he says. “It’s not gold! It’s Adam’s skin!”