With only 100 days to go, the Olympic fashion unveil is picking up steam. First Australia revealed its opening ceremony looks at the end of last month — a green and white seersucker blazer and white shorts or skort. Canada followed suit a few wees ago with a maple-leaf-bedecked blazer a few weeks ago. And on Wednesday, just hours after team Great Britain showed off its Stella McCartney competition gear and team USA debuted its Polo Ralph Lauren closing ceremony style, France stepped up to the podium.

The designer in their spotlight is Felipe Oliveira Baptista, creative director of Lacoste, who was in charge of the opening ceremony, podium and Olympic Village outfits for the French team and Paralympic team. And they are … ?

Minimal. In the colors of the French flag (blue, red and white), though in practice this means largely navy and white, with red accents. Which is a good thing. The opening ceremony look consists of a thigh-length navy Macintosh and skinny white trousers, with a windbreaker and sweatpants in white or navy for awards. The cut is narrow, and close to the body. The Lacoste crocodile comes rendered in the stripes of the French flag, and there are further stripes placed selectively on one arm, or just above the hip of a shirt. The styles are, on the whole — and this is an unusual word to use to for an Olympic uniform — pretty chic.

My one quibble is the presence of a somewhat ornate rooster on the polo and Mac, just across from the crocodile. It’s the French Olympic mascot, so it probably had to be in there somewhere, but that makes for a lot of animal life on one garment.

“You have to find a balance between a look that makes a statement, that is visual enough to read in a stadium and on TV, and one that is not very complicated,” Mr. Oliveira said by phone from Paris. “You don’t want athletes to feel disguised; you want them to be comfortable.”

He should know: He also created Lacoste’s nontechnical outfits for the French team in the 2014 Sochi Olympics, which featured a gray flannel puffa blazer and wrap jacket over khakis, and were generally considered among the more successful styles showcased during those games.

You’d think that the Olympics, the apogee of physical achievement and pure competition, might be the one area exempt from fashion’s reach these days, but then you would be wrong. The opening ceremony has turned into something of a catwalk, and everyone has an opinion on whether their country’s look is the right one. This is especially true if part of your country’s identity is wrapped up in being the home of fashion.

“It’s a lot of pressure,” Mr. Oliveira said.

Indeed, certain countries have gotten in some trouble in the past for opening ceremony outfits that seemed too souvenir-shop kitschy. Ralph Lauren’s 2014 Sochi opening ceremony look, a patchwork grandfather cardigan and beanie hat that combined stars, stripes and Olympic rings, was criticized (in the words of New York magazine) as “a hullabaloo of knitwear perfect for inaugurating your first annual Olympic-themed ugly sweater party!” Perhaps as a result, their new closing ceremony uniform for Rio is significantly simpler (and classically preppy): a red, white, or blue polo button-down shirt over a striped Tee with white chino shorts and boat shoes.

The Australian outfits for Rio, which have a whiff of the yacht club about them, have likewise been met with some raised eyebrows, though the Canadian kit, which was designed by Dean and Dan Caten of Dsquared2 and which features skinny black pants, a red blazer with a maple leaf on the back, and a white shirt that dips down like a tailcoat in the back, has been generally applauded as cool.

Indeed, increasingly, designers are being enlisted in the service of their country (or other countries for that matter). Giorgio Armani, Prada, Hermès, Stella McCartney and the above-mentioned Ralph Lauren are some of the labels whose work has appeared in the last two Olympic Games, either in action or during the formal ceremonies. Not that this is a fail-safe approach: Just ask Ms. McCartney, who was criticized on social media for the competition uniforms for the 2012 London Olympics, which featured a deconstructed Union Jack, minus a lot of the red. They were, it seemed, a little too Fashion for many folks — unlike the new kit, which showcases a new coat of arms plus the Union Jack, and has been widely applauded. (Ms. McCartney is also designing the team GB opening ceremony looks for Rio, but they won’t be shown until July.)

The fact is, while simply doing a few looks for men and women for a big sporting event watched by millions may seem like a relatively easy side project, it is, said Mr. Oliveira, who ultimately made 77 different pieces for the French team, nothing of the kind. You have to create a style that will work on a variety of shapes and sizes, on men as well as women; you have to somehow encapsulate a country’s ethos in a single look; and you have to have it approved by the Olympic Committee, which involves, Mr. Oliviera said, “a lot of restrictions.” He had been working on his French team looks since November 2014.

The Olympic season is “the longest season in fashion,” he said.

Perhaps it is unavoidable, thus, that the Olympic collection had a knock-on effect on his own Lacoste spring line, which was based on a similar color palette (peppered by shades from the flags of other nations, such as Italy) as well as the same stripes, albeit even more fractured, oversize and abstracted. Consumers can choose which version they like best, as a selection of the Olympic looks is being sold now alongside the main line.

Or they can wait, and see what country and which designer does the Olympic reveal next.