How Small Designers Scored Big at the 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony

PARIS – As premium partner of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton was omnipresent at the opening ceremony, but the globally televised event provided equal exposure to independent French fashion brands operating on shoestring budgets.

Daphné Bürki, the styling and costumes director of the opening ceremony, is close to the new generation of Paris-based designers, having walked the runway for the likes of Victor Weinsanto and Jeanne Friot. The TV presenter was also a juror on the first three seasons of “Drag Race France.”  

As part of the core team of creatives working with Thomas Jolly, artistic director of the opening ceremony, she made sure small brands, many promoting a gender-fluid aesthetic, were showcased at key moments of the ceremony watched by an estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide.

Victor Weinsanto, one of the 15 emerging designers selected, said he couldn’t believe his luck. 

“I was thrilled and surprised at the same time. It’s a fantastic opportunity for us young designers. It’s a huge platform, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said the designer, who created a look for Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour last year.  

He was keenly aware that LVMH spent a reported 150 million euros on sponsoring the event.

“We’re grateful to Daphné, to the Paris 2024 Olympic Committee and also to the LVMH group, because they were happy for us to be included, which is really super nice of them,” he added.

Charles de Vilmorin dressed more than 150 participants for a tableau titled “Liberté,” which portrayed a throuple wearing his colorful designs in a tribute to François Truffaut’s classic French New Wave film “Jules et Jim.”

The former LVMH Prize finalist lauded Jolly and his team for daring to push boundaries. “They showed the France that we love,” he said. 

“Breaking free from gender rules”

In some of the evening’s most memorable scenes, a mysterious figure wearing a silver cowl and buckled thigh-high boots rode a mechanical horse across the Seine, before delivering the Olympic flag to the official podium located opposite the Eiffel Tower. 

Friot, whose designs have been worn by the likes of Madonna and Eurovision winners Måneskin, created the look inspired by Joan of Arc.

“She is a woman who is ultra symbolic of what I’m trying to do, what I want – breaking free from gender rules, from what society imposes on me as a woman, and deciding to fight,“ she said. 

“As a female designer who is lesbian, there isn’t a moment in my life where I’m not fighting, whether because I’m a sole female designer, don’t have openly out lesbian role models in the industry or am committed to sustainable design and talking about the challenges that brings,” Friot added.

She collaborated with master leather craftsman Robert Mercier, whose work has been seen on the likes of Zendaya wearing a Balmain wet-effect leather dress and Kim Kardashian in a Jean Paul Gaultier bustier.

Under the leather armor, cut from a metallized leather sourced in Italy, Friot designed printed bodysuits to create a trompe-l’oeil effect of criss-crossing belts. 

“It all had to be adjustable with removable parts, to accommodate security riding equipment but also practical needs such as bathroom breaks for the riders who would be wearing them for several hours,” she explained.

Reclaiming the figure of Joan of Arc felt all the more important because the medieval warrior, a patron saint of France, has often been coopted as a figurehead by far-right groups. 

“It puts back in the conversation a person ‘like us’ – who could have been trans or intersex – but also the connection to garments because she didn’t just don armor, she wore male clothing in everyday life,” Friot said.

In another tableau called “Festivité,” French DJ and lesbian activist Barbara Butch presided over a queer re-reading of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” flanked by performers including “Drag Race France” stars Nicky Doll, Paloma and Piche.

Upcycling and queer pride

The banquet table turned into a runway for designers including Weinsanto, Alphonse Maitrepierre, Kevin Germanier, Arthur Robert’s label Ouest Paris, C.R.E.O.L.E. by Vincent Frederic-Colombo and others. 

Transgender model Raya Martigny crystallized the feeling of pride among France’s LGBTQIA+ community by walking in a catsuit in the colors of the French flag covered in more than 60,000 crystals, designed by Gilles Asquin’s eponymous Asquin label. 

Maitrepierre asked to dress Farida Khelfa, a muse to designers ranging from Azzedine Alaïa to Jean Paul Gaultier. He custom designed a pale pink sheath dress with an opulent folded bodice, made of four layers of material embellished with laser-cut patterns and embroidered floral details. 

“Given that we would be alongside major brands, with means and extensive ateliers, I went for the idea of an evening gown done our way – 100 percent upcycled,” he said. “I visited materials upcycling stocks in Pantin and challenged myself to make [the outfit] from whatever I found there.”

Italian Paralympic fencer Beatrice “Bebe” Vio Grandis was Germanier’s choice. 

“She is someone who inspires me,” he said. “She represents not only beauty but also the strength of the mind. It’s not about a physical form but what emanates from her: courage, pride, resilience in the face of what society dictates, having class and always [with] a smile.”

He expanded on the spiky extravaganzas he showed for fall 2024, imagining a pastel minidress framed with huge sprays of feathers.

Weinsanto, who worked closely with Gaultier on his “Fashion Freak Show” cabaret, loaned several dozen looks from his archives for the fashion show segment staged at nightfall on the Passerelle Debilly bridge, against the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower. 

The designer dressed his muse, model Ildjima Masrangar, in a corset dress from his spring 2024 collection and a huge organza coiff from spring 2022 inspired by his native Alsace region. He hasn’t thought about the potential impact of his participation.

“For me, it’s more a question of personal satisfaction,” Weinsanto said. “I’m thinking of my parents. I know they will be super proud.”

Taking risks

De Vilmorin was first approached last October when he was head of the jury at the Hyères International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories.

He designed oversized rainbow-colored skirts for the aerial dancers from the Gratte Ciel dance company perched on top of poles along the Pont Neuf, and colorful printed shorts and T-shirts for the acrobatic dancers of Compagnie XY, in a scene that concluded with the pilots of the Patrouille de France tracing a red heart in the sky.

In addition to loaning archival haute couture looks, he worked with Bürki and her team to produce outfits for dozens of dancers based on his debut ready-to-wear collection, presented last February. De Vilmorin said it was his first time fitting a range of body types, with sizes ranging from XS to XXL. 

He was proud to be a part of the event, regardless of what happens next. “I have no expectations. I didn’t think, ‘I’m going to get another 100,000 followers,’” De Vilmorin said.

Nonetheless, he hopes his participation will convince buyers he has the capacity to deliver large quantities. “That was a concern for some who were hesitant to buy my first collection,” he noted. “This shows that we were able to pull it off and we can do it for other clients.”

As dancers ranging from Paris Opera Ballet star Germain Louvet to ballroom queen Giselle Palmer hurtled across the soaked runway, audiences got a glimpse of a lesser-known aspect of French culture.

“What Thomas did is brilliant because it’s super modern, it’s joyful, it’s quite edgy in the sense that he was daring and took risks,” said de Vilmorin. “It wasn’t necessarily what people were expecting.”