Olympian Karen Chen Gives The Details On Her Purple Skating Costume

Karen Chen, the American figure skater competing for Team U.S.A at the Winter Olympics in Beijing this year, included some choice details in her skating costume that allowed her to better express herself in the competition through both her moves on the ice rink and her outfit. The 22-year-old Olympic ice skater recently shared a short clip to Instagram in which she explained her costume.

Chen competed in the figure skating team event on Monday this week, succeeding in winning the silver medal for Team U.S.A. During the competition, Chen donned a purple dress for the free skating portion of the event. The purple piece included details like long-sleeves, a low neckline outlined with rhinestones, and a freely flowing mini-skirt.

Chen posted a video to the Team U.S.A official Instagram page after the event in which she explained that her mom was responsible for her making her competition dress.

In the video, Chen said that her mom “probably does 90% of the work, and I do like 10%… And by 10% I just tell her like, ‘Oh, that looks good.'” Chen said explaining in the video the process by which her figure skating looks get made

GettyImages/Joosep Martinson – International Skating Union/International Skating Union

“She does all the hard work,” Chen said of her proud mom. “She puts, like, blood, sweat, and tears into it.”

Chen added that her favorite part of the outfit was the butterfly added by her mother, created using gemstones and placed on the waist of the dress.

“She, like, strategically picked the stones and arranged them in a way so it looks like a butterfly because my free program I’m skating to a ‘Butterfly Lovers’ Concerto,'” Chen explained. “I just want to be a pretty butterfly on the ice.”

Chen succeeded in scoring an impressive 131.52 for her free skate appearance, getting Team USA the points it needed to win silver.