Gold Medal Looks in Paris

Thom Browne, couture fall 2024Credit...François Durand/Getty ImagesThe question of inspiration has always been a little cringey when it comes to fashion: Designers offering up “mood board” collages backstage to turn even the genesis of their collections into content and connect them to some deeper meaning that can often seem either ridiculously convoluted or drippingly banal. Hence Miranda Priestley’s famous “Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking” moment in “The Devil Wears Prada.”

It was a moment that came to mind at the beginning of the Paris couture shows, when guests entered the Dior tent at the Musée Rodin to see the walls covered in 32 mosaic murals of sprinters and surfers and soccer…