The Quad God Wore Screenprinted Balmain Jeans on Olympic Ice

The wardrobe of male professional figure skating has long offered a limited, albeit festive selection: crotch-hugging athletic trousers, vibrant, hand-embellished leotards, and flouncy, tucked-in shirts. But during the closing weekend of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, the options expanded to include designer drip, courtesy of one Ilia Malinin.

Malinin—or the “Quad God,” as he has become known for his ability to land extremely difficult quadruple jumps—skated onto the rink looking a lot like an average American teenager. (One with a generous allowance and a playlist full of Drain Gang, that is.) The Virginia-born figure skater wore a gray hoodie printed with the word “Fear”—a piece of merch for the Michigan-born Christian rapper NF, whose song Malinin would be skating to—and a pair of $1,300 Balmain trompe l’œil-printed jeans with the brand’s iconic biker denim from the 2010s. He also wore bright yellow laces: a gift from Russian hockey player Alexander Ovechkin, who often dons yellow laces himself.

The 21-year-old Malinin began his routine with a brief pantomime set to NF’s song “Fear,” during which he checked his phone, shielded himself from camera flashes, and ultimately burrowed himself into his hood. This move was presumably a nod to public scrutiny following the skater’s up-and-down Olympic experience, which he described during an appearance on the Today show: “The most honest way to say it is it’s just a lot on you, just so many eyes, so much attention, not only from people or fans, media, it’s just so much, and it really can get to you if you’re not ready to fully embrace it,” Malinin said last week. “I can take a different approach leading up to the next Games, hopefully.”

Surely there will be more grails in store if Malinin makes it back out onto Olympic ice in 2030—especially if those future Games are anything like this year’s, during which the Winter Olympians proved rather anomalous in their fashion statements. There were hyper-personalized skeleton helmets, Air Force 1s curling shoes, and the various hair and teeth stylings of Malinin’s Team USA teammate, Alysa Liu, who accepted the gold in women’s figure skating with bleach-blonde halo hair and a “smiley” frenulum piercing.