Panem Fashion Is Power: Joseph Zada and Mckenna Grace Bring The Hunger Games to Paris
A great red-carpet look makes you stop scrolling. In The Hunger Games, a great look can do something much more complicated: make you notice who has power—and who is being turned into a spectacle.
That is what makes Joseph Zada and Mckenna Grace’s Paris appearance more interesting than another movie fashion moment. The stars of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping joined Lionsgate at the Musée Rodin for a gala marking the opening of Elegance Is Authority: The Story, Style and Power of Panem, timed to Paris Fashion Week.
The title gives us a lens for the whole event: in Panem, style is never just style.
The red-carpet looks—and the bigger picture
According to Lionsgate’s announcement, Zada wore an ERL suit with a Tiffany brooch, while Grace wore Monique Lhuillier. The release describes her look as reminiscent of Katniss in Catching Fire—a comparison that connects the new film’s cast to the franchise’s existing fashion legacy.
The connection is fun, but it also invites a better question than “Who wore what?” What happens when the clothes designed to make someone look extraordinary become part of a system that decides how everyone sees them?
Why the exhibition’s name matters
Elegance Is Authority sounds glamorous. Read it again, though, and it sounds like a warning.
Our take: the interesting tension in Panem’s fashion is the gap between the beautiful presentation and the brutal competition underneath it. Spectacle can draw attention to a person while distracting from what is happening to them. A costume can give someone a striking public identity without giving them control over the story being told.
That is a useful way to approach this exhibition: not just as a collection of outfits, but as an invitation to ask what each outfit is doing. Is it communicating status? Turning a person into a symbol? Making power look desirable?
Set in the Musée Rodin gardens, the exhibition brings together archival looks from across the films alongside costumes from Sunrise on the Reaping. Lionsgate says it offers a first look at the Capitol glamour, ceremony and spectacle surrounding the 50th Hunger Games. It is open to the public October 7 and 8.
A different generation, the same machinery
The new film takes place 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games. Zada plays sixteen-year-old Haymitch Abernathy, with Grace as fellow tribute Maysilee Donner.
The 50th Games—also known as the Second Quarter Quell—have twice as many tributes. According to the official synopsis, Haymitch forms an unlikely alliance with Maysilee and joins a coalition challenging the Capitol’s control.
So while the Paris event celebrates the franchise’s visual world, the story behind those costumes is about young people caught inside that world’s power structure. That contrast is the reason to look beyond the gowns and suits.
What to watch for next
As more costumes are revealed, we will be watching for the difference between how the Capitol presents its tributes and how those young people try to define themselves. The fashion can be gorgeous. The question is who gets to decide what it means.
Which matters more to you in a Hunger Games costume: the visual impact, or what it tells us about the character?
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, directed by Francis Lawrence, arrives in U.S. theaters November 20, 2026, according to Lionsgate’s announcement. It is rated PG-13.
Reporting source: Lionsgate publicity announcement distributed via MediaMAX/EPK.TV. Fashion and story analysis by Teens Wanna Know.
Featured photo: Joseph Zada and Mckenna Grace at the Paris gala. Photo: Victor Boyko/Getty Images for Lionsgate.