Look of the Week: In an ethereal gown, Eileen Gu gets her wings
By Jacqui Palumbo, CNN
(CNN) — In front of the Louvre Pyramid, Eileen Gu stepped out this week wearing a set of diaphanous wings — a fitting ensemble for an Olympic athlete whose sport sends her airborne. Gu attended the museum’s second annual fundraiser, Le Grand Dîner du Louvre, timed to Paris Fashion Week, trading out her ski suit for couture less than two weeks after taking home three medals at the 2026 Winter Games.
The peach-plum gradient gown is the creation of Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen, whose high-fantasy sculptural gowns emphasize movement and eye-tricking form, often to gravity-defying effect.
When van Herpen created the garment for her couture collection “Sympoiesis,” shown last summer in Paris, she likely wasn’t thinking about the Louvre’s art trove; the collection was more based around the fragile relationship between ecology and technology (including one gown that incorporated glowing bioluminescent algae). But Gu’s rippling halter gown, adorned with two weightless wings, found a connection with one of the museum’s most famous sculptures: the goddess Nike as the Winged Victory of Samothrace, presiding over a grand staircase.
“I suppose life does imitate art,” Gu said in an Instagram post following the event, with van Herpen chiming in: “It was moving to see you in dialogue with the Winged Victory sculpture, two embodiments of female strength and grace across time.”
Le Grand Dîner did have a theme — Le Louvre, la nuit, or The Louvre, by night — as well as a guest list that included Diane Kruger (also in Iris van Herpen), Anya-Taylor Joy, Alexa Chung and Love Island’s Olandria Carthen. But Le Grand Dîner doesn’t — yet — entail the spectacle of the Met Gala in New York City, where A-List celebrities (but mostly their stylists) attempt to solve the year’s thematic dress code in the most social media-grabbing way. Still, Gu’s interpretive garment may be an early indicator of how Met Gala guests will arrive on the first Monday of May; after all, this year’s theme is Fashion is Art, and some will undoubtedly take direct inspiration from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s vast collection.
Gu’s appearance also continues her streak of fashion week (and adjacent) appearances, following her arrival at Prada’s show in Milan last week alongside WNBA star Caitlin Clark. It’s a well-trodden path from Olympic podium to runway, as gymnasts Suni Lee and Jordan Chiles made multiple New York Fashion Week appearances following the 2024 Summer Games, and Chiles and sprinter Noah Lyles both made their runway debuts for Kim Shui and Willy Chavarria, respectively.
Over the past few years, fashion designers have eagerly courted top athletes, and Gu has been emblematic of that shift since rising to sports superstardom, with luxury campaigns, fashion editorials and a close relationship with Louis Vuitton that included her runway debut at the brand’s 2023 Cruise show. She’s said that sports and fashion aren’t dissimilar, and though she’s worked with a spate of luxury brands and designers, in van Herpen she’s found a visionary also committed to pushing the limits of physics.
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