PARIS — Paris promised to kick off the 2024 Olympic Games with the greatest show on earth. Mother Nature rained on the French capital’s parade, but Friday’s opening ceremony was still a feast of homegrown fashion.
With LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton on board as a premium partner, its Dior, Louis Vuitton and Berluti brands all played a role in the three-and-a-half hour show that unfurled on the Seine, marking the first time the opening ceremony has not taken place in a stadium.
More unexpectedly, the event also shone a spotlight on a plethora of independent Paris-based designers, with Jeanne Friot, Charles de Vilmorin, Victor Weinsanto, Alphonse Maitrepierre, Kevin Germanier and others featured at different points during the story that unfolded in front of landmarks including the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral.
Their presence reflected organizers’ ambitions to make the show open, inclusive and environmentally conscious.
While the pouring rain did not deliver the hoped-for “golden hour” effect, there was plenty to dazzle the more than 300,000 people who gathered on the banks of the river, and the estimated 1.5 billion people who tuned in worldwide.
A sketch of Lady Gaga’s Dior outfit.
Sophie Carre/Courtesy of Dior
Maria Grazia Chiuri, artistic director of womenswear at Dior, dressed performers including Lady Gaga and Celine Dion, marking the latter’s triumphant comeback.
Dion appeared in a grand finale on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, performing Édith Piaf’s classic “Hymne à l’amour” wearing a fringed white silk georgette gown studded with thousands of silver beads that required more than 1,000 hours of work.
The Canadian superstar was last seen onstage in 2019 before announcing she was suffering from stiff person syndrome, a rare disease that causes muscle spasms.