No detail is too small for China in its bid to be the host with the most: Even the hostesses who help present medals at the Olympic Games must dress to impress.

The costumes are the work of not one but three Chinese designers, who worked for more than a year with the Olympic organising committee to ensure that every stitch was perfect.

The designs, which were unveiled last month at a special reception in Beijing, weave together traditional Chinese elements and modern touches.

The biggest surprise is perhaps that the outfits did not feature red, a traditional favourite colour in China.

Zhao Dongming, culture and ceremonies director of the Beijing Olympic Games Organising Committee, says there is a good reason for this: The spotlight should be on the athletes and not the hostesses during the medal ceremonies.

Time for a high five

Still, the dresses are anything but forgettable.

There are five colour series for different medal presentation ceremonies: sapphire blue (for gymnastics, fencing and indoor ball games), blue and white porcelain (for aquatic events), chinese pagoda tree green (for cycling, shooting and modern pentathlon), jade white (for outdoor ball games and equestrian events) and pink (for boxing, weightlifting and wrestling).

The dresses will be worn during a total of 302 Olympic victory ceremonies and 472 Paralympic ceremonies. Each series includes slight design variations worn by medal presenters, tray bearers and athlete escorts.

After the organising committee announced a national competition for Olympic costume designs in May last year, it received hundreds of submissions from across China.

Three winners, You Jia, Guo Pei and Zhang Junqi, were later chosen by the committee. Still, the possibilities for dress designs seemed endless.

'For instance, we discussed whether to represent Olympic symbols in the costumes or to use Tang dynasty costumes, or whether to fuse Han dynasty costumes with cheongsam designs,' says Zhao.

After numerous meetings between the designers and the committee, specifications were laid down about the material and artistic direction to highlight 'Chinese elements, national characteristics and features of the time', while acknowledging the hostesses' roles as envoys.

One of the designers, You, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology, says she saw her job as a kind of artistic and cultural balancing act.

'How to keep that balance was really difficult,' she says.

Her designs, she says, were inspired by the interplay of blue and white hues on traditional Chinese porcelain.

Veteran designer Guo Pei came up with the look of three series: sapphire blue, chinese pagoda tree green and jade white.

She is no stranger to tough customers, having designed for such celebrities as actress Zhang Ziyi. Yet, she says she has never felt so much pressure.

As the costumes would be presented on the world stage many times, she aimed to 'impress both domestic spectators and overseas guests'.