Lindsey Vonn did not walk the runway first. She sat for it.. Backstage at L’Oréal Paris’s Le Défilé, the Olympic champion took the chair for a blowout that did what the gowns usually do: stop the room. Soft, full, and finished to catch the lights under the Eiffel Tower, the hair read less like styling and more like a statement. Sitting pretty, camera-ready, and already the frame fans saved before she ever hit the catwalk.
The night was September 28 at Place Joffre, the ninth edition of Le Défilé and the opening shot of Paris Fashion Week. The theme was “Express Your Worth.” Kendall Jenner opened. Heidi Klum, Jane Fonda, Viola Davis, Eva Longoria, Cara Delevingne, Andie MacDowell, and Kristen Bell walked. Céline Dion closed with “I’m Alive.” Reuters placed Vonn among the names sashaying down that open-air runway, Eiffel Tower lit behind them.
The prep matched the stage. Makeup artist Allan Avendaño built a luminous complexion with Lumi Glotion in Medium Glow, a hyaluron tinted balm, warm bronze, a soft flush, brown kohl, and softly defined neutral lips. Hair, handled by Giannetos, supplied the blowout that carried the look from chair to catwalk. Backstage frames later put her with actress Mika Abdalla, another face the night would not let go of.
Context made the chair matter. Eight months earlier, a complex tibia fracture in the downhill at Milano Cortina nearly cost Vonn a leg. Multiple surgeries followed. She is 41, still in recovery, and this was her first L’Oréal Paris catwalk. Athletes on the same runway included Marie-José Pérec and Paralympian Bebe Vio. The livestream ran across Instagram, TikTok, and L’Oréal Paris’s own platforms.
A blowout is a small thing until the person in the chair has spent the year learning to walk again. Vonn sat still, let the hair fall into place, then took a different kind of straight line and did not miss. Worth, on this night, started in the chair.
