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    The Best Looks of the Paris Olympic Opening Ceremony

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    Paris raised the fashion stakes for the XXXIII Olympiad, and even with the rain, the result transformed the Seine into a watery runway. Even before the XXXIII Olympiad officially began, the litany of firsts was enormous. The first Olympics in Paris in a century. The first with equal gender participation. The first opening ceremony, ever, en pleine air. The first sponsored by a global luxury behemoth.The first Olympics in which fashion was so central to the identity of the host country itself.The opening ceremony featured not only a red carpet at the entrance but offered a full-blown runway show in the middle of vignettes devoted to the history and spirit of the country, including the French Revolution and the reconstruction of Notre Dame. As the monuments of Paris — the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Palais, the Place de la Concorde — provided the backdrop to the event, style was at its heart.The bar was set as soon as it was announced that LVMH would be a premium partner. The goal, according to Thomas Jolly, the Games’ artistic director, was to “shed light on French savoir-faire,” broadly defined. They did it with cabaret and heavy metal, dance, acrobats and 1,800 outfits from brands both new and old. From the start, it was clear the fashion competition stakes would be raised for every other national team. At the opening ceremony for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, Team USA with flag bearer LeBron James (in foreground holding the large American flag).James Hill for The New York TimesIt’s tempting, during an Olympics, for teams to resort to the usual uniform of blazer and chino in national colors (yes, we’re looking at you, USA and Ralph Lauren), to default to the basic athleisure warm-up suit (hello, Italy in Emporio Armani and Canada in Lululemon) or to fall into a trap of national stereotype (Bermudans in Bermuda shorts).But by the time the Olympic cauldron had risen aloft beneath a hot-air balloon, and Celine Dion had begun to belt beneath the Eiffel Tower, and despite the rain that had pelted down requiring mass distribution of ponchos, it was clear the most memorable looks belonged to the teams who played their own fashion game. Not to mention the attendees who dressed for the occasion, and the brand that turned out to have been the secret couturière to the celebrity performers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How A Fashion Critic Mentally Catalogs Fashion Week Shows

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      Theater and dance critics can’t own the subjects they cover, but a fashion critic can — at least imaginarily — by making a hits compilation as the clothes go by.If fashion is a storytelling business, it should follow that runway shows are narratives.Yet they can’t be. For starters, they lack a plot. True, designers can be relied upon to spiel about inspirations, travels or philosophies as a listener’s eyeballs roll back in his head. The truth is that most fashion shows are best consumed, as everything else now is, in fragments. They are elements of an ongoing internal scroll, as continuous, algorithmic and addictive as Instagram reels.That, anyway, is how this critic began viewing the collections in Milan and Paris this season, with the result that the following is best thought of as a mixtape, not anchored to specific nationality or geography or context, random and in some sense impressionistic and probably also solipsistic in the way everything is fundamentally forced to be in an attention economy.Take Hermès. The designer Véronique Nichanian is anything but a household name, probably not even among those in the economic stratosphere this label was created to serve. So what? She’s as consistently fine as — and in many ways better than — other fixtures in the pantheon of men’s wear, people like Giorgio Armani or Helmut Lang. There is a reason you don’t know her.“We don’t do marketing,” Axel Dumas, the Hermès chief executive, said at the company’s show. “We don’t even have a marketing department.”Véronique Nichanian’s jaunty looks for Hermès whispered quiet luxury. Vianney Le Caer/Invision, via Associated PressWhy bother when you are producing jaunty collections for those people whose own initials are enough, as the old Bottega Veneta tagline once held. So-called quiet luxury generally tends to make a racket. Ms. Nichanian’s is a muffled version and whispers wealth.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Emmanuel Macron’s Win Was Also a Win for Louis Vuitton

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      Brigitte Macron continues to champion the brand.Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential election on Sunday was not just a victory for the young president’s vision of France and its role in the world, or centrism versus the far-right wing, though it was both of those things.It was also a victory for fashion, especially high fashion, and the role it plays in reflecting French culture and heritage to the world.If in doubt, simply consider the election night outfit of Brigitte Macron: a custom-made cropped Louis Vuitton navy jacket with silver military detailing and matching pants, perfectly coordinated with her husband’s navy suit (which also coordinated with at least one-third of the French flag). It was a choice that reflected the couple’s united front as well as the ideological battleground the election had become. And it acted as a subtle signal from an administration with a bent toward big business and the free market that those relations will continue to flourish in its second term.Mrs. Macron and Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace before his inauguration in 2017.Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse, via Getty ImagesLuxury, after all, has been cozying up to Mr. Macron since his first run for president, in 2017, and Louis Vuitton has been Mrs. Macron’s brand of choice since she became first lady.Though she has worn other French labels, including Balmain (whose designer, Olivier Rousteing, posted a statement on Instagram lauding Mr. Macron’s re-election) and Alexandre Vauthier, none have been as regularly represented in her public wardrobe as Louis Vuitton. She has worn Vuitton during many of her most performative moments — those times certain to be preserved visually for history, when she serves as a representative of not just herself or her spouse, but the country writ large.She wore Vuitton to her husband’s first inauguration in 2017 (a baby blue miniskirt suit with another military-inspired jacket). Vuitton to Bastille Day celebrations in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. And Vuitton to state dinners at home and abroad, including the 2018 state dinner hosted by President Donald Trump in the Macrons’ honor. Just how many times Mrs. Macron has chosen Vuitton can be tracked on the Instagram account devoted to her style, @thebrigittestyle.From left, Mrs. Macron at Bastille Day celebrations in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.Ian Langsdon/European Pressphoto Agency (2017); Pool photo by Philippe Wojazer (2018); Pascal Rossignol/Reuters (2019); Pool photo by Ludovic Marin (2020)Though previous first ladies of France similarly associated themselves with classic French brands, with Carla Bruni-Sarkozy often wearing Dior and Hermès, and Bernadette Chirac wearing Chanel, and though the Macrons have supported French fashion broadly, hosting designers at two dinners in the Élysée Palace during Paris Fashion Week, Mrs. Macron is the first to work so closely with Louis Vuitton.It is an alliance of political and business power that has served both sides very well.Fashion, after all, is part of the bedrock of the French economy and its patrimony, and Louis Vuitton plays a very specific role in both. The industry accounts for one million jobs in the country, 2.7 percent of its gross domestic product and 150 billion euros (about $160 billion) in direct sales, according to the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the industry’s governing body.And within French fashion, Louis Vuitton — currently celebrating the bicentennial of its namesake founder — is a tentpole brand, and the engine of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury group. As it happens, LVMH is owned and run by Bernard Arnault, the third-richest man in the world and a vocal Macron supporter.President Trump and the first lady welcomed the Macrons to a state dinner at the White House in 2018.Doug Mills/The New York TimesLouis Vuitton is also the name on one of the newer museums in Paris, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, opened in 2014, built by Mr. Arnault, designed by Frank Gehry and designated as a “gift” to the city of Paris that will transfer to municipal ownership around 2070.In late 2021, Mr. Macron helped inaugurate the Fondation exhibition of the Morozov Collection, the first time that major Russian collection was seen in Europe. (Though the loan required President Vladimir V. Putin’s sign-off, LVMH has declared its support for all those affected by “the tragic situation in Ukraine.”) Also last year, Mr. Macron posed with Mr. Arnault at the opening of the renovated Samaritaine department store, likewise owned by LVMH, saying its reopening was a metaphor for the reopening of Paris after Covid-19 isolation.It’s a relationship that has not been without symbolic risks, given the associations with elitism, wealth and class implicit in the very term “luxury.” During the yellow vest protests of 2018 against rising fuel prices, many gilded boutiques on shopping thoroughfares like the Faubourg Saint-Honoré were targeted as examples of what was seen as Mr. Macron’s Marie Antoinette-like remove — a criticism that was revived by Mr. Macron’s opponents during the recent campaign. (Marine Le Pen was almost resolutely unbranded in her run for office.)In choosing Vuitton again for her election night celebration, Mrs. Macron seems to be suggesting that her husband will be doubling down on this particular special relationship. Even though when it comes to that subject, she’s saying nary a word. More