Athletic couture of antiquity at the Rodin Museum

Let the games begin, Christian. The house he founded dedicated its final show to Olympic athletes, just a month before the actual games begin in Paris.

Olympic women and their fight to be among the best athletes in the world, since in the second modern Olympic Games in 1900 in Switzerland only 2% of the athletes were women. There were none in the first four previous years in Athens.

Her determination to play and win was evoked in the stunning latest collaboration between Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri and a leading female artist: Faith Ringgold. For this season, the tented catwalk located inside the Rodin Museum garden featured more than 30 giant images of women in sporting action: baseball, skateboarding, basketball and track and field. Originally mosaics made for the Los Angeles subway, they were fabric reproductions created by the Chanakya School of Crafts in India.

While the main façade of the exhibition was an installation titled Freedom Woman Now, which incorporated red, black and green, the colors of the Pan-African flag.

It was almost as if Mara Grazia wanted to dress the medal winners for a cocktail party or a ball, there were so many visual references to Ancient Greece. And the key element of this autumn winter 2024/25 collection was the peplum, the outer tunic or shawl worn by so many women in ancient times.

Seen in a regal series of opening looks: long ecru knit dresses embellished with gold motifs and scalloped braids. Or in asymmetrical halterneck dresses, some enhanced by hematite claw jewelry.

Before suddenly changing gears with the first of a selection of splendid monkeys. The first in black tulle and radzimir silk panels with matching coat: sports couture at its finest. Followed by a tulle bodysuit with intertwined chains and trim. Talk about the warrior woman's surprise factor.

“Haute couture is created in the body. In this singular space and true space for reflection, an increasingly unique choreography is staged,” the Italian couturier explained in her program notes.

An elegant team of turtleneck dresses followed where some cast members were almost expected to carry the Olympic flame. Much of the collection is made from cotton jersey, not exactly a couture fabric, but ideal for this unusual statement.

All the action, driven by a serial soundtrack with cuts by artists such as Philip Glass, skillfully mixed by sound specialist Michel Gaubert.

All in all, a powerful and unexpected fashion statement that earned loud applause from the packed audience. Featuring a series of powerful women who overcame great obstacles to achieve their dreams. People like Jisoo, Deva Cassel, Rosamund Pike, Laetitia Casta, Venus Williams, Kelly Rutherford, Yseult, Golshifteh Farahni, Doja Cat and Jennifer Lopez, who entered amid a huge swarm of paparazzi.

Rising to applaud Maria Grazia as she took a quiet bow in the final to sporting images of the late great Faith Ringgold.

Born in Harlem in 1930, Ringgold was the subject of a retrospective at the Picasso Museum last year, which led to her dialogue with Chiuri. She though would not live to see her moment of glory with haute couture, as she passed away this April at the age of 94.

This installation is a fitting remembrance for a remarkable woman and artist.