On the evening of September 23, some sixty celebrities of all ages, backgrounds and body types took part in the seventh fashion show organized in front of the Palais Garnier by the global cosmetics giant, Fashion Week’s official partner. It was a joyful, inclusive celebration that spread around the world.
What could be more inclusive….
The seventh edition of the l’Oréal fashion show, which took place on September 23 at 8:30 p.m. in front of the Opéra de Paris, the eve of Fashion Week, ticked all the boxes to reach women the world over…
Open to the general public (reservation required) and broadcast by numerous media outlets; a dazzling array of star models, embodying a diversity of origins, silhouettes and ages; presentation of outfits by young and not-so-young designers… Everything was brought together by the world leader in Beauty, official partner of Fashion Week, to succeed, once again, in this exercise.
Palais Garnier
This year, as in previous years, the venue for the show was a powerful and spectacular symbol of Paris. After the Champs-Elysées, a barge on the Seine, the Monnaie de Paris, the Ecole Militaire, the Parvis des Droits de l’Homme and finally the Eiffel Tower, L’Oréal chose to install an elevated podium, a giant screen in front of the façade of the Paris Opera (in this case, the Palais Garnier), covered by a huge advertising tarpaulin.
The large audience (4,000 people, including 500 invited guests) were able to watch the colorful, musical show imagined by Ubi Bene in the best possible conditions. The event communications agency has some fine references: it was the service provider for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. And L’Oréal’s fashion show was reminiscent of the sports event’s opening and closing ceremonies , with its festive, inclusive feel. Some of the models were Paralympic athletes…
But unlike the Games’ ceremonies, the tickets allowing the general public to come and admire the parade were free. That’s if you’re lucky: reservations, which are compulsory, were snapped up in just 8 minutes!
International appeal
The show was broadcast and livestreamed on all L’Oréal platforms, including Instagram, where it is followed by over 11 million followers.
Delphine Viguier-Hovasse, International General Manager of L’Oréal Paris, told Fashion Network that she “gained up to 50,000 followers” on “her social networks during events like Cannes or the Paris show”.
The show was also broadcast live on screens in London, Milan, Madrid and Poland, and…on the gaming platform Roblox.
The broadcasts by L’Oréal ambassadors, themselves very popular, obviously added to the show’s impact.
As a result, the audience for the 2024 fashion show is likely to surpass that of the 2023 edition, during which the “reach ” (media reach) was 17.7 billion potential contacts!
A celebration of all women
The public were able to project themselves into the myriad of celebrities, models, actresses, singers and sportswomen selected for this new fashion show, dubbed “Walk Your Worth”. In all, some sixty muses, including 15 internationals and 22 locals, and some twenty influencers.
“It’s a celebration of women, with a diversity of social origins, professions, ages… The ambassadors on parade range from 20 to 88 years old,” Delphine Viguier-Hovasse (L’Oréal) explained to Fashion Network.
This is an opportunity to appeal to all types of beauty, including some previously ignored by the world of fashion and beauty. Mature and less mature women alike were able to recognize themselves in actresses Jane Fonda (86), Andie MacDowell (66) and model Eva Longoria (49), who were as radiant as ever…
Others were delighted by the presence of the singer Yseult, with her blossoming curves, or those of Bébé Vio Grandis, the Paralympic bronze-medal team fencer, or Marie Bochet, Paralympic ski champion.
But more traditional beauties from around the world were also in the spotlight, including Indian actress Alia Bhatt, British actress of Indian origin Simone Ashley, South African Thuso Mbedu, Brazilian Tais Araujo and Cuban-American-Mexican singer Camilla Cabello. blond models Cara Delevigne and Heidi Klum or sculptural influencers like Kendall Jenner… Opera obliges, the grace of ballerinas was also at the rendezvous via danced interludes like those of Victoria Dauberville.
The whole fashion planet
But the idea was also to show, in addition to the extensive palette of prowess made possible by L’Oréal’s make-up and hair product lines, outfits representative of the entire fashion planet. The idea was not, as in the official Fashion Week, to present the trends for Spring-Summer 2025, but to draw on collections from previous years, and even archive pieces.
Among the sixty or so fashion houses (compared to a dozen for the first edition) who loaned models this year were established names such as Pierre Cardin, Mugler and Viktor & Rolf, as well as designers from other horizons, such as Hong Kong-born Londoner Robert Wun, Lebanese George Chakra and Indian Gaurav Gputa, and up-and-coming houses like Giambattista Valli, Atlein, Coperni, Vilmorin, Pierre-Gabriel Nouchi and Ludovic de Saint Sernin… Not forgetting Ester Manas, known for her clothes designed for all body shapes…
All of which conveyed a colorful, cheerful and bubbly image of fashion, a far cry from the often highly calibrated shows on the official calendar, where smiles are rarely to be found!
A marketing, communication and sales operation
The L’Oréal fashion show draws its essence from the positioning of L’Oréal Paris, which, according to Delphine Viguier-Hovasse (L’Oréal) is “a brand that makes products that look like luxury products, both in terms of their packaging, their formula and their effectiveness.”
Initiated in 2017 by international communications manager Samy Cheddadi and encouraged by CEO Pierre-Emmanuel Angeloglou (22 years with the company at the time), the show aims, in the latter’s words, to “make fashion and beauty trends accessible to as many people as possible”, benefiting from the unparalleled sounding board of Paris Fashion Week. For the world’s 4th-largest advertiser, it’s as much a question ofextending its brand image by reaching a more upscale clientele as it is of promoting its historical roots – the company was founded 110 years ago in Paris – and its expertise.
In addition to being a fine marketing and communications operation, L’Oréal also boosts its sales via such a fashion show. During the show, “get the look” tabs on the platforms direct customers to the products used to enhance the models’ beauty.
And live shopping was even organized in the Middle Kingdom during the show, thanks to influencers invited to the show. Delphine Viguier-Hovasse (L’Oréal)’s stated objective: to “conquer China ”, where the group currently has 90 million consumers and is targeting… 400 million!
Finally, in the opinion of the International General Manager of L’Oréal Paris, the fashion show offered a “fine illustration of its slogan” dreamed up in 1971 by Ilon Specht, then a copywriter for the New York advertising agency McCann.
Because L’Oréal, like its customers, is worth it…
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Read also > L’Oréal posts outstanding results for the first half of 2024
Featured Photo: © L’Oréal
