The opening ceremony for the 2024 Paralympic Games on Wednesday evening will be remembered for the idyllic weather, dazzling dancing, fireworks and global attention to adaptive clothing.

For the event, organizers transformed the Place de la Concorde into a temporary stadium, centered around a large tableau choreographed by Alexander Ekman and dressed by Louis-Gabriel Nouchi, continuing the trend of putting independent designers in the spotlight at this global event.

As the sun began to set, bathing the view of the Champs-Élysées in a golden light, Canadian musician and songwriter Chilly Gonzales was the first to take the stage, wearing a billowing cape over white, flowing trousers.

Dancers swirled around him, most in formal black suits with tight white shirts. Some wore feathered looks and crystal-embellished athleisure.

“Welcome to Paris,” shouted para-swimming champion Théo Curin to the crowd of spectators estimated at 50,000, who responded with a roaring cheer as smoke bombs in the blue, white and red colours of France went up around the obelisk on Place de la Concorde, at the centre of a 48,000-square-foot stage erected especially for the occasion.

Gold, silver and bronze flags heralded the arrival of the traditional procession of national delegations, while the Patrouille de France flew the colours of the host country across a rose gold sky.

Paris 2024 Artistic Director Thomas Jolly and Styling and Costume Director Daphné Bürki enlisted Nouchi to create the event’s 700-plus costumes.

“I really wanted to work with him because he knows about bodies and is open about it,” Bürki said on the broadcast.

In addition to the 150 dancers, Nouchi also designed the outfits for the evening’s performers, including Gonzales; French DJ Myd, who wore an endless tricolor flag as a cape as he danced while the athletes ran; and Sébastien Tellier, who played the piano as the Paralympic flame descended on the Champs-Élysées, dressed in an embellished cap and an oversized pinstripe shirt paired with black pants.

The designer also paid tribute to Luan Pommier, a 24-year-old visually impaired soprano from Guadeloupe who wowed the judges and audience on the talent show “Incroyable Talent” and studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, in a spectacular white dress.

Christine and the Queens wore crimson suits for a throaty rendition of Édith Piaf’s classic “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” to open the night and later closed out the evening with an energetic rendition of the disco anthem “Born to Be Alive.”

Fashion from luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, a premium partner of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, was less prominent than during the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony on July 26.

However, one-armed singer Lucky Love, who rose to fame performing at the Maison Margiela haute couture show in January, donned a Louis Vuitton look to sing “My Ability,” based on his 2023 hit, “Masculinity.”

Love, whose real name is Luc Bruyère, wore an all-white look consisting of an embroidered single-breasted jacket and flared trousers, paired with black cowboy boots, all by Vuitton’s creative director Pharrell Williams.

He also wore a number of pearl-encrusted gold brooches, chains and aviator sunglasses.

The dance company also wore Legend 06 sunglasses from French eyewear brand Vuarnet, which was acquired by Thélios, the eyewear division of LVMH, in 2023.

First launched in the 1960s, this style was made famous by Alain Delon, who wore them for his role in the 1969 hit “The Swimming Pool”. It was also featured in “James Bond: No Time to Die”, worn by Daniel Craig.

During the evening’s five scenes, Nouchi’s designs covered a wide range of styles: suits, workwear and sportswear.

An initial palette dominated by black and white gave way to colours inspired by “a deconstruction of the French flag”, with mid-tones of blue, white and red, before moving into an explosion of colour.

The sound of the fabric was another aspect Nouchi was particularly excited about. “There’s a mass effect when you have 150 dancers all performing quite close together, so that’s super important,” he said.

With the gap between fashion and sport closing, LVMH has gone head-to-head with sports giants Nike and Adidas in signing para-athletes.

In preparation for the Paris Games, LVMH unveiled wheelchair tennis player Pauline Déroulède and paracyclist Marie Patouillet as ambassadors for Dior and para-sprinter Timothée Adolphe at Louis Vuitton.

Dior previously signed Italian wheelchair fencers Bebe Vio, Andreea Mogos and Loredana Trigilia, while Fenty Beauty signed French paracanova fencer Nélia Barbosa.

With the 2024 Paris Olympics generating so much attention for fashion, inclusive clothing is likely to gain more visibility.

Although she described the event as “a powerful platform to celebrate diverse bodies and abilities,” Swedish designer Louise Linderoth, winner of the 2022 edition of the Grand Prix Inclusive Design and a 2024 jury member, didn’t expect changes to come immediately.

“It’s definitely an opportunity to discuss the topic of accessible expressive and functional needs from a fashion or apparel perspective and also shed light on inclusive design (or lack thereof in haute couture),” she told WWD.

“As much as I hope it will be a tipping point, I don’t expect it to be,” she continued. “I believe the tipping point for inclusive design in fashion will come from the urge to express yourself rather than just for practical purposes.”

Whether it’s adaptive fashion, where clothing is adapted to specific needs such as medical equipment, or inclusive design, this is certainly a market that brands and designers can delve into.

“There is a real need and a very real demand,” Nouchi said.

Research firm Coherent Market Insights estimates that the global market will reach $15.8 billion by 2023, with Europe accounting for 45.4 percent and the U.S. accounting for just under a third of the market.

This figure is expected to rise to $29.8 billion by 2031, with a compound annual growth rate of over 8 percent.

Moreover, “such designs are no more difficult than other custom orders,” Nouchi insisted. “You just have to look at the person and their behavior, and work on the proportions and fit that suit them, rather than focusing on ‘adaptative’ adjustments.”

And even translating the lessons from inclusive clothing into a ready-to-wear line is not such a big task, he says.

“What you really need is a solid background in clothing construction,” he said. “But (inclusive clothing) also really emphasizes that your role as a designer is to make clothes that people can wear, not just to satisfy your own aesthetic desires.”

Customisation was a determining factor in the clothing choices of the thousands of athletes who paraded down the Champs-Élysées.

Berluti, by leveraging its expertise in made-to-measure clothing and footwear, places a premium on comfort and adaptability, says Fanny Diradourian-Liot, the brand’s marketing and merchandising director.

In addition to creating the best outfits that suit each athlete’s body type, much attention was paid to the choice of fabrics.

“The (one) skirt, for example, soft and smooth, is very suitable for people in wheelchairs,” she explained. “Or the shoes are easy to put on with a prosthesis.”

But a new generation of designers may not have to experiment with graduate collections or work for decades before developing the skills they need. Increasingly, educational institutions are incorporating inclusive design principles into their courses.

Colorado State University’s Inclusive Innovations Laboratory challenges students in the Department of Design and Merchandising with a specialization in Product Development to address the needs of consumers while taking into account physical and cognitive differences.

The New School’s Parsons School of Design has introduced a course called “Fashion and Disability Justice,” building on a course it co-taught in 2017 with the nonprofit Open Style Lab.

Meanwhile, the Institut Français de la Mode has integrated adaptive design into a number of bachelor’s and master’s programmes and into sustainable design certification.