Elias Medini turns fashion week into public watch parties

Elias Medini, known online as Lyas, has built a following by livestreaming haute couture shows to crowds shut out of the main venues. With almost 500,000 Instagram followers, the 27-year-old slipped backstage at the Théâtre du Châtelet before a Tom Ford show to get miked up, then streamed the runway on a screen for about 2,000 people in the auditorium who had not managed to get tickets.

He says his aim is to bridge the gap between fashion’s inner circle and the people excluded from it. The watch parties began after he failed to get a seat at Jonathan Anderson’s Dior menswear debut. What started as a TV in a café for 20 people swelled to 300 and spilled into the street.

In Paris this season he ran a dozen events, ranging from improvised bar screenings to larger, organised nights in venues such as the city theatre he borrowed cheaply so people could sit during late-running shows.

France, Paris

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