It looks like athlete uniforms for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games are set to receive one heck of a glow-up, as luxury conglomerate LVMH has been announced a premium partner for the Greatest Show on Earth.
The partnership—which reportedly cost LVMH almost $170m to get over the line—was announced almost one year to the day ahead of the Games, which will run from July 26 to August 11.
“Over several months, Paris 2024 and creative teams from LVMH and its maisons have explored a shared desire to make these Olympic and Paralympic Games an unforgettable experience that rewrites established codes,” read a statement from LVMH.
Boasting 75 houses under the LVMH umbrella, the sponsorship sees its various brands—especially Louis Vuitton, Dior and Berluti—undertake roles within not just the Games itself, but also its surrounding pomp and ceremony.
Berluti will dress the French delegation for the various ceremonies, according to sources. While it has already been confirmed that jeweller Chaumet will design the Olympic and Paralympic medals. Moët Hennessy wines and spirits maisons will provide products as part of hospitality programmes, while Sephora will be a partner for the Olympic torch relay, devising a series of activations for the public.
However, the sponsorship deal doesn’t begin and end with high profile branding slots, LVMH will also provide financial support and apparel for certain athletes, currently including the French swimmer, and 400-metre individual medley world record-holder, Léon Marchand. It will also connect with the French Popular Relief charity to support a sports programme for 1,000 young people who live in vulnerable situations.
“In many ways, our houses are the symbol of France, of its elegance, its audacity and its style. So it’s only natural that we should lend our support to an event that will spotlight France, and Paris in particular, all over the world,” said the billionaire LVMH chairman and CEO, Bernard Arnault speaking at the announcement. “Because in a year’s time, in July 2024, all eyes will be on the Seine for the spectacle of the opening ceremony […] Paris’s beauty invites us to seek beauty and, in that quest, to constantly surpass ourselves. That’s why the total show that Pharrell Williams imagined for Louis Vuitton, which made Paris shine all over the world […] could have had no other stage than the Pont-Neuf, and no other setting than Paris.”