Forget Fashion Week; the Paris 2024 Olympics just might be the biggest fashion event of the year. The opening ceremony, which is taking place on the Seine on 26 July, will feature a parade of the finest athletes from all around the world—as well as a fashion presentation from Dior.
According to WWD, the Paris Olympics opening ceremony will feature 3,000 costumes, including creations from Dior. The French fashion brand’s involvement in the Olympics is not surprising: the maison is owned by the luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which is the official “creative partner” of the Paris Olympics. The LVMH-owned fashion brand Louis Vuitton created custom trunks for the Olympic torch and medals this year, and the medals themselves were designed by the jewellery house Chaumet, another LVMH brand.
Dior has indeed been gearing up for the Olympic Games. In June, Dior added several leading sportswomen to its roster of brand ambassadors. That includes French fencer Sara Balzer, Australian swimmer Emma McKeon, Jamaican sprinter Elaine Thompson-Herah, Japanese fencer Misaki Emura, American soccer player Alex Morgan, and French skateboarder Louise-Aïna Taboulet. The athletes are all set to compete in the Paris Olympics this summer.
Last month, Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri also presented the maison’s Fall/Winter 2024 haute couture collection, which was inspired by Ancient Greece, the birthplace of the Olympic Games.
Details on Dior’s Olympics presentation remain secret, but it is expected to showcase the French fashion house’s savoir-faire. Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the opening and closing ceremonies of Paris 2024 Olympics, told WWD, “After all, these brands—[Louis] Vuitton and Dior—are masters of craftsmanship. [The ceremony] will also put the spotlight on French know-how, so I’m on board when it comes to highlighting talent and beauty, and it fits into the story in a fairly natural way on the whole.”
France’s fashion powerhouses are not the only ones who will be in the spotlight. The opening ceremony will reportedly showcase creations from 15 emerging fashion designers, with an emphasis on sustainable design. Also, for the first time in Olympics history, the opening ceremony will take place on a river instead of a stadium. Athletes will parade on boats along the Seine, Paris’s iconic river, as part of the four-hour spectacle.
Speaking of a spectacle, LVMH is also throwing a welcome party at the Foundation Louis Vuitton on the eve of the Olympics opening ceremony. The event will be co-hosted by Louis Vuitton men’s creative director Pharrell Williams and LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault, and will be attended by celebrities and athletes like Charlize Theron, Serena Williams and Dior ambassador Rosalía. The Paris 2024 Olympics is certainly shaping up to be a very stylish affair.
Below, see some of the sportswomen who have signed on as Dior’s new brand ambassadors.
This story was first seen on Grazia.sg.
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