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On Sunday night, the Stade de France was full, as around 70,000 people turned out for the para athletics. The public chanted one name in particular: Timothée Adolphe, the French vision-impaired sprinter and Louis Vuitton and LVMH ambassador, who won a silver medal in the men’s 400m with his running guide Jeffrey Lami.
Adolphe is just one of many Paralympic athletes who have captured the public’s — and therefore luxury’s — attention in the run-up to and during the games. The Paris Olympics were a grand display of just how intertwined the worlds of fashion and sport have become. Can the Paralympics be a similarly decisive moment — a catalyst for change and a turning point for inclusive fashion?
The Paralympics has always been a smaller affair than the Olympics, but it still offers opportunities for brands. Some 2.3 million tickets (out of 2.5 million) were sold for the 2024 Paralympic Games, which run from 28 August to 8 September (by comparison, 9.5 million tickets were sold for the Olympics). France Télévisions, the official Olympic broadcaster in France, provides unprecedented coverage: for the first time, it is broadcasting all of the Paralympic sports, with free access to 300 hours of live coverage. NBC in the US and Channel 4 in the UK are among the array of international broadcasters. The event generated 2.5 million posts and 82 million video views globally so far on X (formerly Twitter).
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Omega and LVMH, worldwide and premium respective partners of Paris 2024, and Ralph Lauren, the outfitter of Team USA, are hosting brand activations, posting about the games on their social media accounts and appointing a number of Paralympic athlete ambassadors. French designer Louis-Gabriel Nouchi, known for the diverse casting of his fashion shows, created close to 700 costumes for the Paralympics opening ceremony.
For the luxury sponsors, it is an opportunity to show a commitment to inclusivity in an industry that is notoriously exclusive.
“Our commitment is one of the group’s cornerstones,” says Antoine Arnault, LVMH image and environment director, during an LVMH cocktail party in Paris celebrating the Paralympics on Tuesday. He praises Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organising committee, for insisting on keeping the same venues for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, including iconic sites such as the Eiffel Tower and the Grand Palais. “It was the good idea,” Arnault says.
“Paralympic athletes provide us with life lessons and inspiring examples that make disability rhyme with performance and difference with excellence,” Chantal Gaemperle, LVMH executive vice president of human resources, tells guests. “By partnering with the Paralympic Games, LVMH aims to highlight diversity and demonstrate that luxury and excellence are intrinsically linked to openness and respect for differences.” She also stresses how important “the acceptance of vulnerability is in a group like ours that is very performance-oriented”. By 2030, LVMH is aiming to make 5 per cent of its workforce people with disabilities, up from 1.6 per cent at the end of 2023.
The breakout stars to know
Adolphe was appointed Louis Vuitton ambassador in March. “Nicknamed the ‘Guépard Blanc’ (or white leopard) for his speed and agility on the track, Timothée has inspired millions of people across the world with his courage and perseverance,” the house said in a statement at the time of his appointment. “His achievements perfectly demonstrate the values of excellence and boldness that are so important to the house.” Adolphe is multitalented: he is also a rap artist, a stand-up comedian and the creator of a video game for people with a vision impairment, released last year.
Among the other breakout stars from this year’s Paralympics is Ezra Frech, the 19-year-old American track and field athlete who was born without most of his left leg. He won two gold medals in the men’s 100m and the men’s high jump in Paris. He already has ties with fashion, having walked the Boss spring 2023 and autumn 2023 shows. On TikTok, where he has 397,000 followers, he’s “One leg man” posting compelling videos with his prom date, or daily posts in the 100 days “until I win the Paralympic Gold”.
Beatrice Vio, or Bebe Vio, is a 27-year-old Italian wheelchair fencer and an Omega ambassador. She counts 1.3 million Instagram followers. On her feed, you can find her unboxing her Team Italy outfits, among other posts. Italy’s Veronica Yoko Plebani, who starred on the cover of Vogue Italia in 2022 and attended Milan Fashion Week shows in February, won a silver medal in the women’s para triathlon.
American multi-sport para athlete and Omega ambassador Oksana Masters is described by Omega CEO Raynald Aeschlimann as a “Paralympic legend”. “She’s competed at every edition since London 2012, including summer and winter, and has currently won 18 medals. Her personal story is quite incredible,” Aeschlimann says. Masters was born in Ukraine in 1989 with disabilities linked to the Chernobyl disaster. Relinquished by her birth parents, she lived in Ukrainian orphanages before being adopted by an American woman at age seven. She won gold in the individual para cycling time trial in Paris on Wednesday.
Yoko Plebani and Masters both feature in a Lancôme campaign for the soft launch of its AI-powered motion-stabilising makeup device for users with limited hand, wrist and arm mobility. The device, named ‘Hapta’, is set to hit the global market next year.
Para cyclist Marie Patouillet, a Dior and LVMH ambassador, is “the most badass athlete of the Paralympics”, according to Elle France; she won a gold and a silver medal in track cycling. “Marie is an activist and is very vocal on all kinds of discrimination, whether it’s disability or homophobia — and she loves fashion,” her agent Marie Le Cerf says.
Other names to note include Jessica Long, Jamal Hill, Melissa Stockwell and Roderick Townsend-Roberts.
LVMH has signed its Olympic and Paralympic athletes as ambassadors until the end of 2024. After that, some will be kept on, judged on a case-by-case basis. The same holds true for Omega: “Each relationship has to be considered individually,” Omega’s Aeschlimann says. “But the unique thing about many Paralympians is that they can compete across many years. For example, our ambassador Jessica Long has been winning medals since Athens 2004. Others are just at the beginning of their journey. So, I think there are some great opportunities to establish many enduring partnerships.”
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