Karen Chen's Mom Made Her Figure Skating Costume and It Features a Subtle Nod to Her Free Skate

"She puts ... like blood, sweat and tears into it," Karen Chen says of her purple, bedazzled costume

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Published on February 7, 2022 07:00 AM

Karen Chen's beautiful purple free skate costume was lovingly crafted just for her.

In a video on Team USA's Instagram, the newly-minted Olympic silver medalist showed off her skating dress and explained its origins.

"I'm wearing my figure skating dress that my mom [Hsiu-Hui Tseng] actually made for me," Chen, 22, explains. "She probably does 90 percent of the work and I do like 10 percent and by 10 percent I just tell her like, 'Oh that looks good.' "

Continues Chen, "She does all the hard work and she puts ... like blood, sweat, and tears into it."

Pointing to a little butterfly made of gemstones that embellishes the dress, "I think my favorite part is this butterfly down here, 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' and so I just want to be a pretty butterfly on the ice."

Chen performed her program to "Butterfly Lovers' Violin Concerto" for the first time at the Olympics on Monday during the figure skating team event. The athlete, who landed a double Axel-triple toe loop combination, placed fourth with a score of 131.52.

Overall, the U.S. figure skaters completed the team event with a total score of 65 for the silver medal. The Russian Olympic Committee won gold with 74 and Japan edged out Canada and China with a total of 63 for the bronze.

After Monday's second-place finish, Chen celebrated on Instagram, writing, "Truly what a journey of so many emotions these past few days. So proud & thankful to be a part of this team!"

Speaking to PEOPLE ahead of the Games, Chen opened up about her relationship with her longtime mentor, figure skating legend Kristi Yamaguchi.

"She always texts me before a competition. So I'm truly, truly so thankful that we've had this bond ever since I was little," Chen told PEOPLE. "And I just can't think her enough."

"I actually reached out to her and we chatted like a week before [the national championships in January]," Chen recalls. "Mostly it just had — like I thought about reaching out to her and then I think she was also thinking about reaching out to me. So the moment I sent the text, she was like, 'I was literally just about to text you.' So it was really, really funny."

To learn more about Team USA, visit TeamUSA.org. Watch the Winter Olympics, now, and the Paralympics, beginning March 4, on NBC.