This undated image shows the rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. Louis-Gabriel Nouchi was given an enormous task: create 700 distinctive garments for people with disabilities for the event. Photo: The New York Times
Louis-Gabriel Nouchi, of the Paris-based fashion brand LGN, was thrilled when he got the phone call asking him to design the costumes for the Paralympics’ opening ceremony, which was held Wednesday (Aug 28) in Paris, with a procession down the Champs-Elysees that ended at the Place De La Concorde.
“I wanted to put all my heart into this project,” said Nouchi, 36, “Because it was the Paralympics, you know, and it was really close to me personally, because I’m working a lot on inclusivity at LGN in terms of plus size, age and diversity of bodies on the runway during fashion week.”
Nouchi, who is known for manufacturing elegantly simple menswear with a punchy contemporary twist, grinned through a video call in which he was sporting a thick mustache and a simple black T-shirt and smoking a cigarette throughout the interview.
The Paralympics assignment did not immediately elicit in him a sense of patriotism. Though Nouchi grew up in Paris, he was trained in Belgium and worked in Italy during his early career, and he said that his time outside France had been a major influence on his identity as a designer.
But the process of designing hundreds of garments for performers with disabilities brought forth his latent pride in his country.
Designing clothing for people with disabilities was similar to doing so for able-bodied people, Louis-Gabriel Nouchi said. But he had to take different factors into consideration. Photo: The New York Times“I was becoming more and more patriotic as I was working on this project,” Nouchi said. “The more I was doing rehearsals and fittings, the more proud I was. And you know, it’s difficult for French to be proud of being French.”
The brief was straightforward, but it was also an enormous undertaking: create approximately 700 items of clothing for performers with disabilities to wear during the festivities.
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Nouchi said he knew from the outset that he didn’t want to create costumes. Rather, he wanted his clothing to play a supporting role in the show.
The clothing should have an urban, Parisian sensibility and, crucially, be comfortable. He didn’t want his garments to overshadow the performers or the event itself.
In order to achieve this, he had to take a different approach than he would have for a runway show. He imagined 200 performers onstage together and thought about the way they would move and the sounds the fabric would make.
“The difference between a garment and a costume is functionality,” he said. He decided to create outfits made of jersey fabric that were machine washable. The pieces are not without flair, however: He incorporated embroidery, rhinestones and feathers in his designs.
Nouchi’s opening ceremony outfits ranged from casual to formal. Like his LGN designs, his choices for the Paralympics had a chic, sparse quality.
There was a red tracksuit with cutouts along the shoulder blades, accented with white and black lines; an enormous glossy blue robe with pleats; a shimmering, oversized silver blazer; a tunic with quite possibly the deepest V-neck you’ve ever seen; and a denim button-up shirt with deep red splatters.
Nouchi went with a red, white and blue colour scheme overall, which was a deconstruction of the French flag.
“The representation of our own flag in France, it’s not something that you’re doing in the US,” he said. “Showing a French flag, it can be not very positive sometimes.”
He added: “I was really happy about the Olympics. We got to own our own flag. Doing those colours in this place, it was the place of the revolution. Using those colours has meaning.”
When conceiving the looks, Nouchi said, he asked himself: “What’s the reference? Is it the right reference?”
“Nothing is innocent when you’re talking about fashion,” he continued.
According to the designer, the difference between a garment and a costume is functionality. Photo: The New York Times“You’re talking about society, specifically in this ceremony, when you really talk about inclusivity and different body types.”
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Designing clothing for people with disabilities was similar to doing so for able-bodied people, Nouchi said. But he had to take different factors into consideration.
“For someone in a wheelchair, you don’t want to put the attention on having big shoulders, because it’s not flattering to the silhouette,” he explained.
“There were some people that didn’t want to have long sleeves because they needed their skin to be in contact with a wheelchair to perform.”
He recalled one of the dancers trying on a suit he designed for her, and bursting into tears.
“You have no idea what the meaning of this is for me,” Nouchi said the dancer, who uses a wheelchair, told him.
She had always wanted to wear a suit, but had not been able to find one that was made for her body.
Nouchi’s experience working on the Paralympics’ opening ceremony was liberating for him.
“I was creating outfits for the beauty of gesture,” Nouchi said.
“Nothing is going to be on sale after. It’s not just about me. I’m just doing the clothes. It really helped me let go creatively and to allow myself to test new things.” – The New York Times
