PARIS (AP) — It may be premature to call these 2020 Paris the Fashion Olympics, but the word “fashion” has certainly been tossed around more than any other Olympics in the city widely known as the fashion capital.
For four-time American ice hockey Olympian Angela Ruggiero, it seemed natural that the first celebration of gender equality at the Games should be with a fashion show, and so on Sunday, a group of two dozen former and current Olympians strutted down a makeshift runway at a Paris restaurant, eliciting cheers and high-fives from a cheering crowd.
Ruggiero, who runs a market research firm focused on the intersection of sports and innovation, said he has been following “this trend of sports and fashion colliding” for years.
“The Olympics will be held in Paris – the perfect venue to celebrate this great achievement of gender equality on the field, while also recognizing the opportunities off it, including elevating women’s voices through style,” she told The Associated Press.
This year, the International Olympic Committee has set a goal of a 50/50 gender balance, meaning for the first time there will be an equal number of women and men among the 10,500 athletes entered in 329 sports.
The actual gender balance won’t be known until after the Olympics, given team selection, national rules and other unknowns. It’s possible that the balance will be slightly lower. But whatever the exact numbers, the female athletes who walked down the runway with Ruggiero — many from the US, but also from other countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Liberia and Qatar — were eager to celebrate the moment.
It will also drive future progress in other areas of the sport, including decision-making at the highest level.
“We need to keep this momentum going,” said U.S. beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings, who won three gold medals and one bronze medal, “and we need to expand on this momentum. It can’t just be once every four years, it can’t just be some special event like this. It needs to be 24/7, 365 days a year, because 50 percent of the population is women.”
The runway show, titled PARITY Paris, was hosted by clothing and goods brand 4TheWalk in partnership with Coca-Cola at a restaurant next to Paris’ famous Opera Garnier. Athlete models, most of whom had never walked a runway before, wore outfits from the show and other brands, including Sneex shoes.
Several people said they had been nervous beforehand, including New Zealand BMX racer Sarah Walker, who is six months pregnant with her second child and who bared her pregnant belly on the catwalk.
“I was really scared, but it was a sign that maybe I should do it,” Walker said later. “Especially because I have a 2-year-old daughter and another girl on the way, I thought this was really important for future women – to set an example that women can do anything.”
Natalie Cook, a five-time Olympian beach volleyball player from Australia, had fun as she approached the photographers, shaking her hair like a supermodel.
“This is my first time performing on a catwalk,” she said of her catwalk experience, “and I have no intention of giving up my athletic career.”
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For more information on the Paris Olympics, visit https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games.
