Closer Look: How Paris Claimed Its Title Of “Fashion And Luxury Capital Of The World” At The 2024 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony
Paris was already fevered a month prior to the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, when on June 23, International Olympic Day, Vogue World raised a toast to 100 years of French fashion. It celebrated the historic Games and its athletes with a spectacular showing at the legendary Place Vendôme.
Rewind one year to July 24 2023, sports and fashion signed one of the most “luxurious” sponsorship deals for the world’s foremost sporting event to be hosted in the French capital. LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton invested €150 million to sign itself as premier creative partner for the two Paris 2024 Games, bringing some of the most legendary labels and brands under its extensive banner - Dior, Louis Vuitton, Chaumet, Berluti, and Sephora, to the sports arena.
On July 26 2024, the Games opened with a grandiose ceremony along the river Seine with performances and costumes that announced the host city as the fashion capital of the world. The unconventional location was just the beginning - every Olympic and Paralympic opening ceremony had always been presented in a stadium. Critical eyeballs world over scrutinized teams’ costumes as they waved themselves into the parade - seemingly setting the scales to represent one’s country through fashion.
The ceremony carried a strong world message of inclusivity, solidarity, peace, and freedom, and according to Artistic Director Thomas Jolly, it saw a participation of around 18,000 people - athletes, performers and technicians.
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Here’s how Parisian uber luxury and craftsmanship shone at the Games:
LUXURY
MEDALS
Chaumet, a French high jewelry and timepiece house since 1780 has designed and crafted the 5,084 medals for the prestigious Games. When a Maison stands on a 244 year old legacy of craftsmanship, one cannot help but be excited about how the medals would be treated - what message would the pieces carry?
Every medal has embedded in its center, a hexagonal shaped piece of iron from the Eiffel Tower, conserved since Paris’s iconic structure was constructed in 1889. Fine rays radiate out from the hexagon, the geometrical shape of France, acknowledging the meritorious performances of the athletes at the Games. The LVMH owned luxury brand pays homage to the history of France through these crafted badges of honor, which will be conferred onto the medalists.
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TRUNKS and TRAYS
The House of Louis Vuitton has crafted bespoke trunks to hold and protect the Games’ prestigious regalia. The trunks are covered in LV’s signature Damier (checkerboard) canvas and carry their iconic monogram. They are fitted with the brand’s typical brass trimmings and locks.
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The Medals Trunk safeguards and displays the medals crafted by legendary jeweler Chaumet.
The trunks come with Medal Trays, also wrapped in Damier canvas with an interior lining of matte black leather. A trunk can hold 468 medals.
The Torch Trunk carried the Mathieu Lehanneur crafted Olympic Torch during its journey across France and to the cauldron in Paris.
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COUTURE
DIOR
Lady Gaga
The American star opened the ceremony with a stagey burlesque performance and a gorgeous rendition of “Mon Truc en Plumes” (“My Thing with Feathers”), originally sung by French ballerina, singer, and actress Zizi Jeanmaire in 1961.
A tribute to the Parisian dancers of the 19th century, the vaudeville at the tip of île Saint Louis in the middle of the Seine saw Gaga wear ostentatious French cabaret glamour designed by Dior Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri. The ensemble was a richly feathered jacket in black, a wrap train of extravagantly layered black and flamingo pink plumes with sparkly sequins (made of naturally moulted feathers), and underneath, as she peeled the layers, a black bustier and satin boyshort panties made by luxury lingerie brand Cadolle. Her costume was completed with a delicate headdress by prolific milliner Stephen Jones, black elbow-length gloves, and pointy toed stilettos. The singer concluded her theatrical performance with a white feathered Cul de Paris - an exaggerated feathered posterior typical of cabaret revues.
Gaga’s troupe of ten performers, also dressed in Dior, danced with pompoms sourced from French cabaret theatre Le Lido.
Disappointing that viewers were not treated to the live show - unexpected showers had the stage too risky to perform the cabaret set.
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Céline Dion
The opening ceremony closed with French Canadian singer Céline Dion rendering a bedazzling performance of Edith Piaf's “Hymne à l'Amour” from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, just under the illuminated Olympic rings.
The gentle rain amplified the aura surrounding the pop diva dressed in a shimmering white sheath of Dior haute couture. Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri custom-designed a long-sleeved cape gown with a high neckline focussing on the muse’s shoulder line and outlining her lithe figure. The slender gown in silk georgette was embellished with over one thousand hours of delicate white and silver beadwork in pearls, beads, and crystals. “What makes this craft very special is that the background is worked with a very detailed technique called the Zaganella, where micro sequins create movement,” shared a member of the creative team. Streams of meter-long silver beaded tassels cascaded down the dress imparting an etherealness to the singer’s movements. She wore her hair slick in a nape bun and her eye make-up was smoke-shadowed.
Dion was accompanied by composer and conductor Scott Price at the piano who wore a black tuxedo by Kim Jones, Creative Director for Dior Hômme.
Dress in detail for Lady Gaga and Céline Dion, here.
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Aya Nakamura
The twenty-nine year old French-Malian singer wished to portray a phoenix rising from its ashes for her opening ceremony performance on the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge across the Seine famous as the bridge of romance.
Chiuri designed a gold feathered sculpted dress for the artist - a one-shouldered mini dress made entirely of overlapping gold feathers. The outfit construction, as shared by the creative team, required painstaking meticulousness - starting with the selection and gluing of the feathers piece by piece so they fit precisely along the body shape, to molding the dress to an inner corset. Gold gladiator sandals from Dior completed the singer’s theatrical costume.
Aya performed an unforgettable medley of her hits “Pookie” and “Djadja” with six dancers also dressed in Dior gold. They were accompanied by France’s Republican Guard.
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Axelle Saint-Cirel
For many, the highlight of the opening ceremony was the powerful delivery of “The Marseillaise”, the French national anthem, by mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel and sixty members of the Choeur and the Maîtrise de Radio France, stirring tears in a rain-soaked evening.
For the French vocalist, Chiuri designed an eight meter-long draped gown in virgin white silk crepe. The drapes were constructed around a bustière and the red of the French flag was extended into its folds, suggesting the one-shouldered gown continued from the flag that was held aloft by the celebrated singer on the Grand Palais rooftop.
The choir singers, dressed by Dior, wore blue, white or red one-shouldered fluid dresses with braided sashes, reminiscent of the peplum worn by women of ancient Greece.
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Juliette Armanet and Sofiane Pamart
Performing “Imagine” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono is a ritual at the Olympics ever since Stevie Wonder sang it at the 1996 Atlanta Games in memory of the victims of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.
For the 2024 games, French singer Juliette Armanet’s emotional rendition of the customary song was dramatically staged on a float on the Seine, accompanied by pianist Sofiane Pamart, whose piano was set aflame for the performance.
Both performers were dressed in black leather Dior. Armanet wore a cropped top and fitted pants with flared hemlines. The magic lay in the collaborated design with contemporary embroidery designer Clara Daguin that “lit” the performance outfits to an unprecedented level. Clara Daguin, known for using tech and fiber optics in her work, fitted LED lights interspersed with beads in wave-like patterns on the artists’ ensembles. These lights pulsated to the highs and lows of the music, adding cinematic drama to the show.
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LOUIS VUITTON for Performers
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Guillaume Diop
The “étoile” (star) of Paris Opera Ballet wore a beige Vuitton vest and voluminous pleated skirt as he performed live on the roof of City Hall.
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Rim’K
Franco-Algerian rapper Rim’K, member of the group 113, performed a fusion of dance and sports in a Louis Vuitton red and black shearling shirt with oversized Damier patterns.
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Shaheem Sanchez
The pioneer of American Sign Language dancing, Shaheem Sanchez, a deaf dancer himself, wore a copper color Vuitton suit for his performance to the song “Supernature” by French disco legend Cerrone.
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FASHION
EMERGING INDEPENDENT DESIGNERS
The opening ceremony offered its prestigious platform to fifteen new French fashion designers to present their savoir-faire for various performances at different points during the event. The emerging talent, some like Charles de Vilmorin and Victor Weinsanto with Paris Fashion Week experience, created pieces that underscored inclusivity, love, and freedom in bold, and were of sustainable design. The designers were enlisted by the Olympic opening ceremony's Artistic Director Thomas Jolly and Styling and Costume Director Daphné Bürki.
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Jeanne Friot
The young French designer’s costume rendered a symbolic image of the French resistance fighter, Joan of Arc. A hooded horse rider dressed in an armor suit by Jeanne Friot carried the Olympic flag to its final destination opposite the Eiffel Tower. The performance was choreographed by French dancer Maud le Pladec.
Friot had to craft several copies of the suit as the performing artist had not been assigned. “Together with my team, we made a belt-print jumpsuit […] and a leather armor made of faux metal with the French leather artist Robert Mercier,” shared the fashion creator whose designs have been worn by celebrities like Madonna. She completed the look with thigh-high articulated vegan leather boots.
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Charles de Vilmorin
Charles de Vilmorin, known for his unapologetic use of bold colors and print patterns, designed costumes for a sequence dedicated to love. The performance enacted a throuple, in dedication to the French New Wave classic “Jules et Jim.” The dancers sitting and standing on poles appeared to float over the Seine in de Vilmorin’s brilliant color palette.
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Some designers had their creations catwalked by drag queens and transgender supermodels on the Passerelle Debilly, a footbridge over the Seine. DJ and LGBT icon Barbara Butch provided music for the fashion show.
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Victor Weinsanto
Designer Victor Weinsanto, who created a look for Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, paid tribute to his native region Alsace for the fashion event. He dressed his model Ildjima (Queen Toïdé) in a black corset dress and an enormous Alsatian headpiece of printed lilac organza that imitated the traditional checks and stripes of Kelsh linen fabrics.
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Kevin Germanier
Kevin Germanier’s designs are known to exhibit a volatile energy about them, and shockingly, are made of deadstock materials. He tags himself “up-cycling king” and “beads master” for his obsession with beadwork. Paralympic fencer, Beatrice “Bebe” Vio Grandis, walked the fashion ramp across the Seine in a powder puff tutu dress in chalky pastels and an exaggerated bouquet of white feathers by the Swiss-born, Paris-based designer.
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Alphonse Maitrepierre
Maitrepierre’s works employ artisanal talent - sculptors for his shoe designs and illustrators for his prints. The French designer’s aesthetics lean towards up-cycling, working with discarded leather, silk, and lace from French luxury goods houses.
Little surprise then, that the soft pink gown created by the former assistant stylist at Jean Paul Gaultier for the fashion event, was made entirely of Parisian recycling waste and patterned all-over with laser-cut flowers by Cutter Design. The off-shoulder gown was modeled by French documentary filmmaker and former model Farida Khelfa, former muse to the fashion houses of Jean Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler, and Azzedine Alaïa.
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Gilles Asquin
Transgender supermodel Raya Martigny walked on the Passerelle Debilly wearing a custom-created catsuit by designer Gilles Asquin. The outfit, in the national colors of blue, white, and red, shimmered with over 60,000 crystals hand-embellished on it. “We wanted to show and represent our France: diversity, love and power, for all minorities, for those who are muted and hidden,” said the passionate designer who has designed numerous looks for the TV show "Drag Race France”.
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PARADE of NATIONS
With the fashion umbrella over the Games, competing teams’ uniforms came under microscopic scrutiny during the unconventional Parade of Nations which had 85 boats ferry 205 delegations across the Seine from Pont d’Austerlitz to the Trocadero.
Team Greece led the procession in white blazers, dark denim jeans, and white sneakers, while host team France was the last to sail in, dressed by LVMH brand, Berluti. The opening ceremony uniforms were an exciting display of how appointed designers chose to portray their nation in the most honorable international sporting event - traditional (Mongolia), historical (Sri Lanka), art (Haiti), dapper (Taiwan), preppy (Australia), sports (Jamaica).
Dress in detail for some teams: here
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BEAUTY
The collaboration between beauty and sports is not unfamiliar, since sports stars started wearing themselves as brands. Their endorsements on camera - product endorsements, magazine covers, and editorial shoots require beauty touch-ups usually emphasizing health and inner glow. In turn, their athletic health “naturally” advertizes the product. With LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods conglomerate as the 2024 Olympics partner, beauty, an intrinsic element of fashion, is poised to affirm its connection with sports and give a makeover to the experience of the 2024 games with its products and services.
Pop artist and actress Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty is a “premier partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024”, establishing itself as a brand committed to inclusivity and embracing diversity - the underlying message of the games this year. Fenty is providing tutorials and free make-up kits to the 600 young volunteers aged 18 to 21, who are carrying medals to athletes.
LVMH’s premium beauty retailer, Sephora, is the official partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Torch Relays. The multinational chain of personal care and beauty products has organized events in their pop-up stores within some of the torch relay cities, and offer beauty treatments for medalists.
Major skin care and beauty brands like Olay, L’Oreal and others, have sponsored teams and athletes for these games, with some offering experiences like make-up and treatments at pop-up booths.
Beauty in detail: here
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The forty-two year old artistic director, Thomas Jolly, visualized the ceremony as “… a celebration of being alive, and of living together.” He portrayed France as “very flamboyant, extremely diverse and extremely rich.”
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That, says it all.