The 2024 Paris Olympics are so stylish that even the Olympics photographers are impressively dripped out. If ever anyone needed further proof that these really are the most stylish games of all time…
Now, to be clear, professional event photographers have a job to do: They show up, they snap, they upload, they move on.
Especially at events like the international Fashion Weeks, it’s much less about what they’re wearing and much, much more about what their subjects are wearing. These are folks dressed to work, not impress.
But that’s what makes photographer style so fascinating.
In the same way that the everyday wardrobes of ordinary folks prove transcendent in their effortlessness, the utilitarian garms of working people epitomize unbothered effortlessness, an aspirational attitude affected only by the truly stylish — and those indifferent to style.
Hence why, say, Bill Cunningham’s no-frills blue chore coat made the legendary street style photographer himself a timeless icon of street style, arguably better-dressed than his subjects. At least, his inimitable looks have certainly aged better.
At the 2024 Olympics, specifically, there’s a throughline between Cunningham’s lovingly worn-down outerwear and the uniforms worn by the photographers on the ground.
Most are wearing a surprisingly steezy brown vest printed with the 2024 Paris Olympics logo and each photographer’s unique number, fitted with two pockets for storage. No nonsense, just a quietly cool layering piece.
But the real flex is the blue vest only given to a handful of folks, likely reflecting a different level of access. So crisp! So cool! An incidental taste of the French workwear blue that Cunningham wore every day.
The best style moments are, always, the most inadvertent. There’s nothing cool about trying to be fashionable but the inverse epitomize good taste.
That’s part of the reason why folks like Korean shooter Kim Yeji, the breakdancing teams and the young skateboarders stood out so hard this year.
The photographers’ vests are great, the sort of quotidian thing that’ll be a thrift grail in a decade. But it’s that they’re coolly worn by the folks who typically aren’t on the other side of the camera is what takes them to the next level.