How will the Olympic Games impact Couture and Paris Men’s Fashion Weeks?

Logistics, traffic, security… Preparations for the 2024 Olympic Games, which will be held in Paris from July 26 to August 11, are already generating their fair share of complications in the capital. Combined with soaring prices, they have turned the upcoming June Fashion Weeks into a showdown. Whether it’s for the Men’s Week, scheduled for June 18 to 23, or the Haute Couture Week, which has been brought forward to June 24 to 27, it’s an inextricable headache for players in the fashion sphere to organise runway shows, shoots and other events. While the major fashion houses will all be present, some smaller brands have decided not to show in the capital, while several others have preferred to organise their sales campaigns in Milan.
 

Although the Paris police prefecture has stated that the traffic restrictions, with the introduction of a digital pass to access the secure perimeters, will not be fully effective until July 18, the centre of the City of Light is already undergoing a number of changes. At the moment, the competition sites are being set up in some of the capital’s most emblematic locations, including the Place de la Concorde (which will be completely closed to traffic), the Trocadéro, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-de-Mars, the Invalides, the Grand Palais, the Alexandre III Bridge (also already closed) and the banks of the Seine, which will be used for the opening ceremony in the form of a grand river parade. In other words, several of Fashion Week’s key locations, some of which will be closed to traffic for the duration of the event, and some metro stations will also be completely closed.
 
The closure of the Place de la Concorde, a major road and public transport hub, is a particular problem. From June 1, the square will be closed to traffic. And from June 17, the three metro lines serving the square (1, 8 and 12) will be closed until September 21. The Petit and Grand Palais will also be inaccessible, while the Jeu de Paume and part of the Tuileries will be difficult to access.

Time is not at a standstill in June for Paris, and to complicate matters, there is the Fête de la Musique on June 21 and Vogue World, a high-impact show “celebrating 100 years of fashion and sport”, which will take over the Place Vendôme on the evening of June 23. And let’s not forget the fashion shows taking place in June, such as Man/Woman from 21 to 23, and Welcome from 20 to 23.
 

More shuttles to serve the shows

 
To ensure the best possible preparation for these two “dangerous” Fashion Weeks, the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM) has been in regular contact for months with the Préfecture de Police, the Olympic Games Organising Committee (COJO), Paris City Hall and the relevant ministries. Well in advance, it submitted to the authorities a list of 260 venues usually frequented by Fashion Week: 208 were selected, the others having been eliminated because of accessibility problems caused by the work to install the Olympic infrastructure.
 
For example, the Palais de Tokyo, close to the Trocadéro and Place d’Iéna, which hosts many fashion shows as well as the Sphère showroom dedicated to young designers, has been preserved. Another example is the Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA). Popular for fashion shows, especially by young brands, the site will be accessible but problematic, as it will be used as a car park for OCOG vehicles. The general consensus is that traffic is likely to have the biggest impact on the June Fashion Week. To avoid this risk, the FHCM will be making six shuttles available to accredited professionals, as opposed to the usual two, two of which will serve the route dedicated to presentations for the first time.
 
In addition, a lengthy consultation process has been carried out in advance, studying all the possible impacts in detail in order to organise a fluid calendar “with a route from one fashion show to another that is as easy to digest as possible,” according to the Federation, which has favoured the organisation of shows in the same district and longer lead times between each slot. As far as security is concerned, the houses have been asked to be particularly vigilant and to provide their own security services, as the police will already be very busy during the period. With the support of the Défi, aid has been made available to help small brands equip themselves with security guards.

 
However, these measures have not prevented a number of brands from foregoing their Paris shows. No fewer than eight did not appear on the calendar this season. These include Botter, EgonLab, Officine Générale, Paul Smith, GmbH and Winnie, while Givenchy and Valentino, which are in a creative transition phase, are also not showing. In addition, labels such as Ludovic de Saint Sernin, Koché and Etudes Studio, who skipped the Paris show in January, are not returning to the catwalks this season, most preferring to opt for a presentation format.
 
“It’s a rather unusual and uncertain season,” agrees Lucien Pagès, whose communications agency manages the catwalks and events for several of these brands. “There are an increasing number of young labels who choose to show only once a year, which allows them to shine, without spending too much. Today, a fashion show costs a colossal sum. Renting the venue alone costs between 20 and 30,000 euros, not including the models, but also the teams who have to be housed and fed on site for the foreign labels.” With the sharp rise in hotel prices over the last year, as well as the price of locations, these costs have become unsustainable for small fashion houses, which are also facing a difficult economic situation.
 

Alternative options

 
International buyers are also said to have been put off by the rise in prices charged by hoteliers in the Paris region in the run-up to the Olympic Games. While hotels have reduced their rates in recent weeks in the face of low occupancy rates, the current situation casts doubt on the presence of many professionals, particularly from Asia.

These factors have prompted some of the most established names to opt for alternative options, such as Paul Smith, who will be presenting his collection in Florence as part of Pitti Uomo in June, as will Marine Serre. Or Officine Générale, which will focus on one presentation and move its sales activity to Milan this season. For its part, EgonLab will be banking on a digital campaign and targeted presentations in Paris and London, while also relying on Milan for its sales. “We do a lot of business in Asia, but many Asian buyers won’t be coming to Paris in June. For us, it wasn’t viable to commit so much funding to a physical event that very few people were likely to see. We preferred to invest in a showroom in Milan, where a whole network of buyers will pass through,” explains Kevin Nompeix, one of the label’s founding designers.
 
This price inflation has prompted more than one brand to skip Paris, putting a strain on the galleries in the Marais district, for example, which have not all managed to rent out their premises as usual, which are usually intended for presentations or showrooms: “There are several designers who have taken spaces in Milan to hold their sales this season. There will be a lot more buyers too, especially Asians from China, Japan and Korea who don’t usually visit Milan, and who will be coming here for Men’s Fashion Week. We’re receiving a lot of requests for accreditation,” explained Carlo Capasa, President of the Italian Fashion Chamber (CNMI).
 
“We are also noticing that some showrooms, which used to present their collections in both Milan and Paris, will only have a showroom in Milan this time, due to logistical difficulties linked to the Olympic Games,” he continues. Giacomo Piazza, co-founder of showroom 247, one of the largest in the Lombard capital, is one of them. He confirms the situation: “We’re inundated with requests. Every day, brands call us, including big international names, asking us to help them find locations. We’re also getting more and more requests from buyers, who want to reduce their presence in Paris so they can spend more time in Milan.
 

As a showroom, 247 has also had to change its plans. “Paris is already complicated. But with this situation, it became impossible! Especially as we’re going through a rather difficult time. With the exorbitant costs of travel and accommodation, and the logistical complications, if on top of that we don’t have a visible return… We had to make a choice. In agreement with the main showrooms, including Rainbowwave and Tomorrow, we decided not to go to Paris this season, to concentrate all sales on Milan”, he explains.
 
Normally, 247, which distributes around forty brands, does its Italian sales in Milan and its international sales in Paris. “We operate from 6,000 square metres of showroom space, divided between the 16th arrondissement and Saint-Germain. We employ over 100 people and meet an average of 100 buyers a day. Travelling to the French capital in June is going to be a nightmare. We can’t afford any logistical problems. It’s a question of profitability,” notes the entrepreneur, who has had to rent additional space in Milan as a result.

Service providers busy with the Olympics

 
Laurent Bandet, head of the Paris production agency Petit Ami, also confirms the complexity of the situation and the rise in prices caused by the organisation of the Olympic Games. “From a production point of view, prices have skyrocketed, because projectors, sound systems, lights, etc. have been hired in advance for the Games, and many of them will already be in use in June with several sports-related events leading up to the Games. There’s also a shortage of manpower,” points out the entrepreneur, who is managing fourteen projects during the June Fashion Weeks, including several showrooms for houses such as Ami Paris, Jean Paul Gaultier, Mugler and Y/Project.

The closure of certain areas and the constraints imposed by the assembly of the Olympic sites will mean that, for example, we will have to adapt the timetables for installations at the show sites and other locations, with deliveries scheduled for early in the morning. “We’ll have to work longer and more hours. It’s more a question of logistics on a fairly tight schedule and the costs of the time span,” notes Laurent Bandet, who has nevertheless managed to avoid passing on the prices to his customers by booking people and, above all, spaces fairly quickly through his Forest agency. Forest manages thirteen vacant spaces in Paris that it rents out for temporary projects.
 
“When it comes to small brands, we’re in a fragile economy. We have therefore found solutions by managing to keep budgets under control as much as possible, whether for the regulars on the Paris catwalks, some of whom were very reluctant to show for financial reasons, or for smaller labels, such as Danish designer Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard, who will be walking the runway off the runway,” concludes the director, for whom “the biggest unknown remains traffic”.

 
As well as the runway shows and sales campaigns, there are other industry-related activities, from in-store sales to photo shoots, which usually take place at this time of year. “Brands had planned to bring their shoots forward to May, but I didn’t get any more appointments that month. In June, we’re full, with casting days, fittings and company parties. It’s probably because we’re in République, which is a bit out of the way from the Olympic venues,” says Aline Dupin, head of production at Quartier Général, a studio for photo shoots and filming, as well as a venue for events.
 
However, just when the studio thought it would be fully booked in July during the Olympic Games, “nothing happens. Foreign clients who had booked well in advance for a fashion event have even cancelled. It has to be said that the list of constraints imposed by the organisers of the Games for security reasons is enormous and has discouraged a lot of people,” she says.
 
A major luxury house located in the centre of the capital, which was advised by its district council not to work in its offices during the Games, has found a solution. “We’re going to relocate to our London offices for the photo shoots,” she confided. The major labels are not expecting to achieve superb sales in their Paris boutiques over the period either, relying instead on their prestigious addresses in London and Milan. But the impact of the Olympic Games doesn’t stop there. With the Paralympic Games scheduled from August 28 to September 8, and the gradual dismantling of the sites until November, disruptions are also likely to be felt at September’s Fashion Week…