How costume designer for Olympic figure skaters built her business
When U.S. figure skaters Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu and Isabeau Levito take to the ice to compete at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, they all wear dresses designed by the same woman.
The designer’s name is Lisa McKinnon, and she outfitted three women competing for Team USA in singles figure skating events, as well as two American ice dancers and two South Korean skaters at these Olympics. Collectively, the seven athletes are preparing to compete in at least 13 costumes from Lisa McKinnon Designs, a Los Angeles-based studio that McKinnon founded in 2014.
McKinnon works 40 to 60 hours a week, regardless of the season, she told CNBC Make It. He and his five employees estimate they will create about 700 costumes for skaters of all disciplines and levels by 2025. The business charges $90 an hour, he says, and custom costumes for high-level skaters typically cost $4,000 to $8,000 a piece. (McKinnon declined to share the business’s total annual revenue.)
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Most clients have to request costumes at least six months in advance, regardless of the end product they want, and McKinnon’s team often works on a costume by deadline, she says. The timeline largely depends on demand and budget for costume emergencies or special requests.
A special request: In December, reigning world champion Liu asked McKinnon to design her a new dress for her Lady Gaga-themed program at the 2026 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in early January. The designer said McKinnon wore the dress to St. Louis the same day Liu competed in the costume. He says he finished it in a hotel room in St. Louis.
“I really care about every project I do. A little blood, sweat and tears are completely ordinary for me. [though] I don’t cry much [these days]” says McKinnon, 47.
Skating ‘is in my blood’
Born and raised in Sweden, McKinnon grew up as a figure skater and made her first competition costume for herself at age 15. She didn’t have the crystals usually attached to skating dresses, so she says she hand-stitched the sequins; sequins attached to the fabric with small beads.
He says he started making costumes for other skaters later that year, at the request of a member of the Swedish national team. But he mostly pursued his own skating career; he eventually performed for eight years in professional shows such as Disney On Ice, then worked. He says they will serve as performance directors for eight more years.
Starting in 2006, McKinnon began spending her summers between shows in the US, and after leaving the skating world, pursued jobs overseeing costume departments in Las Vegas and then Los Angeles. In 2013, while serving as costume supervisor at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, California, an old friend who was a skating coach at a local rink asked her if she would design a costume for a student.
She says the dress was eye-catching enough that other local parents and athletes started coming to McKinnon. She says she quit her job in late 2014 to start her own business and has since gained a reputation for making costumes that add storytelling to the theme of each skating routine.
Within a year, some of the country’s top stars living in or near Los Angeles, home to many top skating coaches, were competing in her costumes. One of the first clients, Los Angeles-based Ashley Wagner, was already a multiple-time U.S. national champion when she started working with McKinnon. Another, Karen Chen, later competed in multiple Olympic Games and won gold in the 2022 Winter Olympics team event.
McKinnon vividly remembers the first time she saw her designs on national television, saying: Wagner and Chen wore them on the runway after winning silver and gold medals at the 2017 U.S. National Figure Skating Championships.
“I drank a lot of champagne and definitely shed some tears,” says McKinnon.
His business is small compared to demand. To keep up, McKinnon arrives early in the morning to do paperwork and stays late to tidy up, throwing away scraps of fabric and rearranging crystals, she says. He adds that competitive skating and costume design both require determination, endurance and ambition.
“I’m really competitive. I want to do the things I’m good at and I want to be the best,” says McKinnon. “Once you skate, it becomes a part of your life in some way. It sticks with you. It’s always been a part of my life and I feel like it’s in my blood.”
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