PARIS — Paris has promised to kick off the 2024 Olympics with the greatest show on earth, and though Mother Nature brought rain down on the French capital’s parade, Friday’s opening ceremony was still a feast of homegrown fashion.
LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton participated as a premium partner, with its brands Dior, Louis Vuitton and Berluti taking part in the three-and-a-half-hour spectacle on the Seine River, marking the first time that an Opening Ceremony was held outside a stadium.
More from WWD
More surprisingly, the event also spotlighted a number of independent Paris-based designers, with Jeanne Julio, Charles de Vilmorin, Victor Weinsant, Alphonse Métrepierre and Kevin Germanier featured in various scenes of stories that unfolded in front of landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral.
Their presence reflected the organizers’ desire to make the show open, inclusive and environmentally conscious.
Although the pouring rain did not provide the hoped-for “golden hour” effect, it was enough to captivate the more than 300,000 people who gathered on the riverbank, and an estimated 1.5 billion people watching worldwide.
Lady Gaga’s Dior outfit sketches.
Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior’s artistic director of womenswear, has designed outfits for artists including Lady Gaga and Celine Dion, celebrating the latter’s triumphant return.
Dion took to the stage for the grand finale on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, performing Edith Piaf’s classic “L’amour” in a white silk georgette gown with fringe and thousands of silver beads, which took more than 1,000 hours of work to make.
The Canadian superstar last appeared on stage in 2019, when he announced that he was suffering from stiff-person syndrome, a rare condition that causes muscle spasms.
Shortly after the 7:30pm start, Gaga kicked off the event with a tribute to Gigi Jeanmaire.
The Dior team creating Lady Gaga’s outfits.
Wearing a black feather jacket, black satin bustier and panties, and a detachable skirt embroidered with pink and black feathers, the singer performed the French cabaret performer’s best-known song, “Mon truc en plumes,” on a riverbank with 10 dancers. (Dior said in a statement that the feathers were collected during the birds’ molting season.)
Dior also dressed Malian-French singer Aya Nakamura, whose appearance sparked heated discussions about race and national representation. The Lancôme brand ambassador is the most listened-to French artist in the world.
Wearing a short, asymmetrical dress covered in gold feathers that recalled Chiuri’s fall couture collection, Nakamura performed her hit “Jaja” on the Pont des Arts bridge, surrounded by the French Republican Guard military band, and ended with a salute that could be seen as a scathing message to her critics.
Nakamura Aya performed at the opening ceremony.
Another highlight was when mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cyril, from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, sang the French national anthem on the roof of the Grand Palais wearing a draped Dior dress integrated with a French flag that she held in her hand.
She was accompanied on the Pont Alexandre III by a choir of women dressed in updated versions of the peplos, a robe traditionally worn by ancient Greek women, rendered in red, white and blue.
Some attendees held flags reimagining “Freedom Woman Now,” a work by African-American artist Faith Ringgold, who died in April at age 93 without seeing the collaboration come to fruition.
Celine Dion performs at the Eiffel Tower during the Opening Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France on July 26, 2024. (Olympic Broadcast Service screenshot, courtesy of IOC, via Getty Images)
It was part of a tableau entitled “Sororités”, an alternative to the traditional “Fraternité” for France’s national motto of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, and paid tribute to women who have made significant contributions to French history, including Simone Weil, who, as Minister of Health, pushed through the law legalising abortion in France in 1975.
Chiuri was also involved in another emotional highlight: a rendition of Juliette Armanes’ “Imagine,” accompanied by pianist Sofiane Pamar. The French singer wore a waxed canvas top and flared trousers with glowing embroidery, a collaboration between Dior and designer Clara Dagin, known for her high-tech creations incorporating LEDs and fiber optics.
After her performance, a message appeared on the screen saying: “We stand up and speak for peace.”
Earlier in the day, Pharrell Williams, Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of menswear, joined the Olympic torch relay procession along with French model Laetitia Casta, who posed for busts of Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic, which are displayed in government buildings across France.
Pharrell Williams carrying the Paris 2024 Olympic torch trunk.
Standing in front of the Basilica of Saint-Denis next to a Vuitton trunk made to hold the Olympic torch, the pair symbolized the handover between Los Angeles and France, which is set to host the Summer Olympics in 2028.
Billed as the biggest televised event in history, opening ceremony artistic director Thomas Joly said 18,000 people participated, from athletes to performers to technicians.
Considered the French version of Lin-Manuel Miranda, he is known for directing long-running Shakespeare plays and recently spearheaded a revival of the 1970s French rock opera “Starmania,” with costumes by Louis Vuitton’s womenswear creative director, Nicolas Ghesquière.
On Friday night, Vuitton was once again at the center of a pre-filmed scene worthy of a blockbuster movie or the video game “Assassin’s Creed,” as a masked torchbearer traversed the rooftops of the French fashion house’s headquarters, overlooking the Seine, and entered a workshop where artisans were making trunks—a somewhat poetic statement, since the building mainly houses offices and showrooms.
It was the most visible sign of LVMH’s various endeavors surrounding the world’s biggest sporting event.
As part of a scene dubbed “Synchronicity,” several oversized Louis Vuitton trunks were transported across the Pont Neuf (where Williams held her debut show last June) to the Paris Monnaie, where the Olympic medals designed by LVMH-owned jewellery house Chaumet were made.
A torchbearer runs across the Pont Neuf during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, on July 26, 2024.
Another recorded scene showed dancers dressed in recycled clothing sprayed with gold paint being suspended from scaffolding around the Notre Dame Cathedral, which is due to reopen in December after five years of renovation following a devastating fire.
Soon after, ballet dancer Guillaume Diop, who last year became the first black dancer to be appointed “étoile,” or star dancer, at the Paris Opera Ballet, wearing a beige Vuitton vest and loose brown pleated shorts, performed live on the roof of City Hall.
Rim’K, the French-Algerian rapper and member of the group 113, performed in an oversized version of the brand’s red and black shearling shirt in the brand’s signature Damier check pattern.
Meanwhile, deaf dancer Shahim Sanchez, a pioneer of American Sign Language dance, wore a copper-colored Louis Vuitton suit and performed “Supernature” by French disco legend Cerrone.
Daphne Bürki, the ceremony’s styling and costume director, who oversaw the creation of all 3,000 outfits and commented on the ceremony broadcast live on France 2 television, mentioned many of the smaller designers who contributed to the evening’s 12 artistic sets but only mentioned Dior’s name once.
De Vilmorin paid homage to the French New Wave classic Jules et Jean by designing costumes for a love scene between threesomes.
Pole dancers wore rainbow skirts decorated with his fantasy design, and the scene ended with Patrouille de France pilots painting a red heart in the sky over the Pont des Arts.
Julio, whose designs include Madonna and Eurovision winner Morne Schneider, designed a hooded rider on a grey horse reminiscent of Joan of Arc, who carried the Olympic flag to its final destination opposite the Eiffel Tower.
Other models included those who walked in the fashion show at Passerelle d’Ebilly, where Kenzo held its runway show last year.
Farida Khelfa, muse for designers from Azzedine Alaïa to Jean Paul Gaultier, walked in a Maître Pierre outfit, Germanier dressed Paralympic fencer Beatrice “Bebe” Viot Grandis, and Weinsant dressed his muse Iljima Maslangal in a giant organza hat as a homage to his native Alsace.
About 100 boats carrying most of the 10,500 athletes taking part in the games sailed along the Seine from the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Trocadero, the square opposite the Eiffel Tower.
The French boat was the last to arrive. The athletes were wearing Berluti’s official uniforms, but the impact of the design was somewhat diminished by the fact that many of them were wearing disposable plastic rain ponchos. Fortunately, the athletes will wear the uniforms again at the Paralympic Opening Ceremony on August 28th.
Jolie said she wanted the ceremony to show that France is “very colorful, very diverse and very rich,” a strong political message at a time when the government is in limbo after snap elections that left the ruling and opposition parties at odds.
“Paris and the Olympics in general are all about bringing people together,” he said.
Paris 2024 Olympics 2024 Opening Ceremony Photos, Live Updates
View Gallery
Gallery published: Paris 2024 Olympic Games 2024 Opening Ceremony Photos, Live Updates
Best of WWD
