Paris has a lot going on right now. With one week to go before the first round of voting in elections that could radically redraw French politics, the country is a tinderbox. Pre-Olympic nerves are frayed; high water levels on the Seine after weeks of heavy rain have forced the postponement of a rehearsal for the ambitious opening ceremony, due to be conducted on barges sailing through the city. Football fans are on tenterhooks on the eve of a crucial Euro 2024 encounter with Poland.
But Paris is never too busy for a fashion show. Especially one with supermodels Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner on horseback, Bad Bunny rapping, Sabrina Carpenter channelling Brigitte Bardot and Katy Perry in a leather harness, US actor Jeremy Pope dancing to Eartha Kitt, and iconic French ex-footballers Djibril Cissé, Blaise Matuidi and Emmanuel Petit taking a lap of honour under a photogenic midsummer sunset.
Vogue World: Paris, the first fashion show ever held in the Place Vendôme, was fashion’s unofficial opening ceremony for an Olympics which, with LVMH as a major sponsor, is set to be the most style-adjacent games in history.
This was the third outing for the Vogue World franchise, after events in London and New York. The decline of print media has humbled once mighty glossy magazines, leaving editor in chief Anna Wintour in search of a new platform from which the still potent Vogue brand can wield power and make money. Vogue World is a vehicle for keeping the Vogue name alive in a post-magazines world as a gatekeeper to the world of glamour and a byword for soft power. It is a rollout of the Met Gala, the annual New York charity gala which Wintour has transformed into a news event and which this year raised $26bn for the city’s Metropolitan Museum. Vogue World, like the Met Gala, is a charitable initiative – ticket proceeds from Paris will go to Secours Populaire, a non-profit that promotes access to sport for French children – but the ability of the event to attract serious money, with sponsorship this year from eBay and Nike, will have escaped nobody’s notice.
Eight hundred gilt chairs circled the cobblestones of the Place Vendôme. Napoleon stood imperious atop his 40-metre bronze column; the ghost of Coco Chanel, whose apartment overlooked this square, surely peeked from one of the curtain-swagged arched windows of the Ritz. Diane Von Furstenberg, Légion d’honneur medal pinned to her tricolour gown, held hands with Christian Louboutin. As the orchestra struck up, a pageant of seamstresses from Balenciaga, Dior and other iconic ateliers, dressed in their traditional white coats, waved flags as if at an Italian palio. The show was an esoteric history lesson of a century of French fashion, performed by a cast of 151 models and 70 dancers alongside veteran athletes and French youth teams, which twinned each decade with a sport.
The 1980s, for instance, were represented by the martial arts, which meant black-belted athletes kicked in unison while models marched in the opposite direction cosplaying power dressing by wearing Saint Laurent power tailoring and pretending to talk into brick-sized mobile phones.
The stadium scale of the Place Vendôme lent itself to the supersized choreography of a football match, albeit with picturesque curlicued wrought-iron lamp-posts instead of glaring floodlights. In contrast to the London event, which was staged in a theatre, this was all action with no dialogue. But the mood was more Folies Bergère than Stade de France. At any given moment, the scene might include helmeted cyclists zooming past tap-dancers in Chanel flapper dresses, or frock-coated waiters pirouetting with trays of drinks while iconic models including Debra Shaw catwalked in iconic Givenchy evening gowns. Sabrina Carpenter, in retro swimwear, picked a path between a troupe miming synchronised swimming dressed in caps and goggles. Thoroughbreds Django and Napo, carrying Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner, were outfitted in giant Hermes scarves for the occasion.
After the show, front-rowers Pharrell Williams and actor Diane Kruger retired to the Ritz for champagne. But outside in the Place Vendôme, the troupes of young athletes, jacked up on adrenaline and celebrity selfies, stayed to dance and celebrate. For one night at least, Paris was in party mood.