Team USA Toasts the Olympics at Variety Sundance Event With J. Crew

Olympians have been bundled in cashmere and classic wool on the opening night time of Sundance, courtesy of J. Crew’s new U.S Ski & Snowboard assortment.

Team USA skiers Nick Page, Tess Johnson and Lauren Macuga discovered reprieve from the sub-30 diploma climate on Thursday night time at Main Street’s Firewood restaurant for a dinner hosted by Variety and J. Crew celebrating the model’s partnership with Team USA ahead of the 2026 Olympics.

Variety On the Road to Cortina Presented by J. Crew occurred in the restaurant’s darkly lit, cabin-esque downstairs eating room, the place friends sipped on specialty Alpenglow cocktails before being ushered to their seats, topped off with J. Crew present baggage. For dinner, attendees loved a comfortable meal consisting of Tenderloin steak, a Winter Gourd dish and an assortment of candy treats and low for dessert.

Sundance serves as a homecoming of types for each Macuga and Page, who attended high college together in Park City — a longtime pipeline for elite U.S. ski expertise. Both have emerged as two of Team USA’s most compelling younger winter sports activities standouts. However, Macuga, who suffered a torn ACL in late November, won’t be able to compete at this yr’s Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, the place she had been thought-about a medal hopeful in downhill and super-G. The injury required surgical procedure and compelled her to overlook the the rest of the 2025-26 World Cup season.

“I’m just a little bit saddened,” Macuga said by tears during a panel hosted by Variety editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh. “But I get to go there and cheer on my teammates and hopefully watch them win some medals.”

Also in attendance was iconic U.S. alpine skiier Picabo Stree, who told Page that each her sons have his autograph “on the wall in their rooms.” “I have to get yours next,” he quipped from stage.

Later, Libby Wadle, CEO of J. Crew; Sophie Goldschmidt, President and CEO of U.S Ski & Snowboard; and Kelvin Ulrich, Chairman of the Board of J. Crew, took the stage to debate their three-year partnership, which they are saying they already plan on increasing.

“It was one of the most authentic fits,” Goldschmidt said about their becoming a member of forces. When requested about her first impression of the assortment, she admitted that she “normally has an opinion on everything.” “It’s really annoying actually,” she joked. But when she noticed the new items, “I literally had nothing to say. It was like, ‘Check, check, check!’ It was exactly what we dreamed it would be.”

Rooted in J.Crew’s longtime connection to alpine life and après-ski dressing, the assortment spans refined knitwear, elevated loungewear and important cold-weather equipment for women, males and children, completed with exclusive vintage-inspired patches. Creatively, the assortment attracts closely from the model’s archives. The partnership also expands into performance territory by way of a ski capsule developed with Kappa, U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s official on-mountain associate, that includes technical jackets for women and males that mix high-performance performance with polished mountain type.

So, how do you break by in the trend world? Setoodeh pointed out that just like indie movie, it has develop into tough to face out in an more and more saturated panorama. “It’s about authenticity” Ulrich said, including that plopping a celeb in a campaign isn’t efficient if not accomplished intelligently. “Just having someone who looks great on a billboard isn’t necessarily going to sell clothes.”

“People want to be inspired,” he continued. “It’s hard to find inspiration. How do you do that? Partnering with inspiring organizations. For us, that’s Team USA Ski & Snowboard.”