Female Olympians hit fashion runway in Paris to celebrate gender parity

It may be too early to call these Paris Olympics the Fashion Olympics. But, in the city widely considered the capital of fashion, the word fashion has surely been mentioned so far more by now than in any other Games.

And so it made sense to Angela Ruggiero, a four-time U.S. Olympic medalist in ice hockey, that if she was going to launch a celebration of gender parity in these Games, it should be with a fashion show. And that's how some 20 or so former or current Olympians wound up sashaying down a makeshift runway on Sunday at a Paris restaurant, to whoops and high-fives from a supportive audience.

For years, says Ruggiero, who runs a market research firm focused on the intersection of sport and innovation, she's been following this trend of sport and fashion colliding.

And the Olympics are in Paris. I mean, what a perfect venue to celebrate a monumental achievement of gender parity on the field while nodding to opportunities off the field, including elevating these women's voices .