The opening ceremony for the 2024 Paralympic Games on Wednesday night will be remembered for idyllic weather, dazzling dancing, pyrotechnics and for shining a global spotlight on adaptive clothing.
For the event, organizers transformed Place de la Concorde into a temporary stadium, with the centerpiece being a vast scene choreographed by Alexander Ekman and costumed by Louis-Gabriel Nouchi, continuing the trend of giving independent designers a spotlight at the global event.
As the sun began to set, dusting the perspective of the Champs-Élysées with golden light, Canadian musician and songwriter Chilly Gonzales was the first to take to the stage, wearing a billowing cape over a white fluid trouser set.
Around him swirled dancers, most in formal black suits with crisp white shirts. Some wore feather-decked looks and crystal-embellished athleisure.
“Welcome to Paris,” hollered para-swimming champion Théo Curin before the crowd of spectators, estimated at 50,000, answered with a roaring cheer as smoke bombs in France’s blue, white and red went up around the obelisk on Place de la Concorde, at the center of a 48,000-square-foot stage erected for the occasion.
Gold, silver and bronze flags heralded the arrival of the traditional procession of national delegations as the Patrouille de France streaked the host country’s colors across a rose-gold sky.
Thomas Jolly, who is the artistic director of Paris 2024, and styling and costumes director Daphné Bürki called on Nouchi for the event’s 700-plus costumes.
“I really wanted to work with him because he has knowledge and openness on bodies,” said Bürki on air.
In addition to 150 dancers, Nouchi designed the outfits for the evening’s performers, which included Gonzales; French DJ Myd, who sported an endless tricolor flag as a cape as he mixed as athletes walked; and Sébastien Tellier, who played the piano as the Paralympic flame descended the Champs-Élysées, was clad in a bedazzled cap and oversize pin-striped shirt paired with black trousers.
The designer also draped Luan Pommier, a 24-year-old visually impaired soprano singer from Guadeloupe who wowed the jury and public during the “Incroyable Talent” talent contest and studied at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, in a spectacular white gown.
Christine and the Queens wore a crimson suit for a breathy rendition of Édith Piaf’s “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” classic early on and later closed the evening with an energetic rendition of disco anthem “Born to Be Alive.”
Fashions from luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, a premium partner of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, were less prominent than during the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games on July 26.
However, one-armed singer Lucky Love, who gained prominence by performing at the Maison Margiela haute couture show in January, donned a Louis Vuitton look to croon “My Ability,” based on his 2023 hit, “Masculinity.”
Love, whose real name is Luc Bruyère, donned an all-white look comprising an embroidered single-breasted jacket and flared pants, paired with black cowboy boots. All were by Vuitton men’s creative director Pharrell Williams.
He also accessorized with a multitude of pearl-studded gold brooches, necklaces and a pair of aviator sunglasses.
The dancing troupe also slipped on the Legend 06 sunglasses from French eyewear label Vuarnet, which was bought by LVMH’s eyewear arm Thélios in 2023.
The Vuarnet Legend 06 sunglasses in matte black with Greylynx gradient lenses.
Courtesy of Vuarnet
This model first launched in the 1960s was made famous by Alain Delon, who wore them for his role in the 1969 hit “The Swimming Pool.” It was also featured in “James Bond: No Time to Die,” worn by Daniel Craig.
Throughout the five tableaux of the evening, Nouchi’s designs ran the gamut of suit-based styles, workwear and sportswear.
An initial palette dominated by black and white gave way to colors inspired by “a deconstruction of the French flag,” with midtones of blue, white and red, before turning into an explosion of colors.
The noise of the fabric was another aspect Nouchi was particularly keen on. “There is this mass effect when you have 150 dancers all performing together rather closely so it’s super important,” he said.
As the divide between fashion and sports grows ever smaller, LVMH was neck-and-neck with sports giants such as Nike or Adidas in signing para-athletes.
Ahead of the Paris Games, LVMH revealed wheelchair tennis player Pauline Déroulède and paracyclist Marie Patouillet as Dior ambassadors and para-sprinter Timothée Adolphe at Louis Vuitton.
Dior previously tapped the likes of Italian wheelchair fencers Bebe Vio, Andreea Mogos and Loredana Trigilia while Fenty Beauty signed French paracanoeist Nélia Barbosa.
With the spotlight on fashion afforded by the Paris 2024 Games, inclusive clothing is likely to get a boost in visibility.
While deeming the event “a powerful platform where diverse bodies and abitilies are celebrated,” Swedish designer Louise Linderoth, winner of the 2022 edition of the Grand Prix Inclusive Design and 2024 jury member, didn’t expect change to come immediately.
“It is definitely an opportunity to discuss the topic of accessible expressional and functional needs in a fashion or garment perspective and also shed light on inclusive design (or the lack of it in high fashion),” she told WWD.
“As much as I hope it will be a tipping point, it’s nothing I expect,” she continued. “I believe the tipping point for inclusive design in fashion will come from the urge to express yourself rather than practical purposes only.”
Whether it’s adaptive fashion, which describes clothing that has been modified to take into consideration specific needs such as medical equipment, or inclusive design, this certainly is a market brands and designers would do well to look into.
“There is a real appetite and very real demand,” said Nouchi.
Research company Coherent Market Insights estimated that the global market stood at $15.8 billion in 2023, with Europe representing a 45.4 percent share and the U.S. accounting for just shy of a third of the market.
It is expected to leap to $29.8 billion by 2031, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 8 percent.
Plus, “such designs are no harder than any other bespoke order,” insisted Nouchi. “You just have to look at the person and their demeanor, working on the proportions and fit that will suit them rather than focusing on ‘adaptative’ tweaks.”
And even building lessons from inclusive clothing into a ready-to-wear line isn’t that tall of an order, in his opinion.
“What you really need is a solid background in garment construction,” he said. “But also [inclusive clothing] really drives home that as a designer your role is to make clothes for people to wear, not just to satisfy your own aesthetic wants.”
Tailoring certainly dominated the wardrobe choices of the thousands of athletes who paraded down the Champs-Élysées.
Leveraging its expertise in custom-made clothes and shoes, Berluti had comfort and adaptability top of mind, said Fanny Diradourian-Liot, the brand’s marketing and merchandising director.
In addition to creating the best outfits to suit each athlete’s body shape, much attention was paid to fabric choices.
“The [one] of the skirts, for example, soft and smooth, is very suitable for people in wheelchairs,” she explained. “Or the shoes are easy to put on with a prosthesis.”
But a new generation of designers may not have to experiment with graduation collections or work decades before developing the skillset needed. Educational institutions are increasingly incorporating inclusive design principles in their courses.
Colorado State University’s Inclusive Innovations Laboratory challenges students in its Department of Design and Merchandising’s Product Development concentration to answer the needs of consumers with physical and cognitive differences in mind.
The New School’s Parsons School of Design has introduced the “Fashion and Disability Justice” course, building on a class presented with nonprofit Open Style Lab in 2017.
Meanwhile, the Institut Français de la Mode has integrated adaptive design into a number of its courses at the bachelor and masters level, as well as in its sustainable design certification.