Hunger Games 2026: Elegance Is Authority in Paris

Hunger Games 2026: Panem takes over the Musée Rodin

Just as Paris Fashion Week draws to a close, the capital has found an unexpected new runway: Panem. On October 7 and 8, 2026, the sculpture garden of the Musée Rodin hosts Elegance Is Authority: The Story, Style and Power of Panem, a temporary installation devoted to the visual language of The Hunger Games. Rather than attempting a conventional franchise retrospective, the event puts costume at the center of the experience, bringing visitors unusually close to original screen-worn pieces and to costumes from the forthcoming The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. Mulderville was invited to discover the installation on Wednesday, October 7, before the public opening, offering a close look at details that cinema can sometimes show for only a few seconds: construction, fabrics, silhouettes, ornamentation and the deliberate excess through which the Capitol turns appearance into political theater.

Elegance as power, propaganda and resistance

The exhibition title is more than a fashionable slogan. Throughout The Hunger Games, clothing communicates status, allegiance, control and rebellion, and the Paris installation builds its identity around that idea. In the garden of the Hôtel Biron, bronze animal imagery, golden chariots, banners celebrating the 50th Hunger Games and stacks of old television sets broadcasting Capitol-style propaganda turn the elegant museum setting into a temporary Panem showcase. Archival costumes sit alongside new pieces, allowing the franchise’s visual history to be read almost as a political vocabulary. A Katniss Everdeen look from the original era and the flamboyant palette associated with Effie Trinket remind visitors that spectacle in Panem is never merely decorative: fashion can disguise violence, manufacture celebrity, enforce hierarchy or become a symbol of defiance.

A Paris preview of Sunrise on the Reaping

The timing is carefully chosen. The installation arrives only weeks before The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, the sixth film in the franchise, directed by Francis Lawrence from the 2025 novel by Suzanne Collins. Set 24 years before the first Hunger Games film, the story returns to the 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell, when each district is forced to send twice the usual number of tributes. At its center is a 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy, played by Joseph Zada, long before the damaged mentor portrayed by Woody Harrelson in the original films. The premise makes the exhibition’s focus on ceremony especially relevant: this is a Games built around an even larger human spectacle, with 48 tributes rather than the usual 24.

A new generation inherits familiar Panem figures

The new film deliberately reconnects audiences with characters whose older incarnations helped define the earlier movies. Jesse Plemons plays the younger Plutarch Heavensbee, Elle Fanning becomes Effie Trinket, Kieran Culkin takes on Caesar Flickerman and Ralph Fiennes portrays President Coriolanus Snow. Glenn Close appears as District 12 chaperone Drusilla Sickle, while Mckenna Grace plays Maysilee Donner. The ensemble also includes Maya Hawke, Whitney Peak, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Lili Taylor, Billy Porter and Ben Wang. Director Francis Lawrence has described the movie as a return to the structure of the Games themselves, while still approaching familiar rituals in a new way. That makes the Paris costume presentation more than promotional decoration: it provides a physical bridge between the iconography audiences already know and the visual identity of a chapter they have not yet seen.

Joseph Zada and Mckenna Grace open the exhibition in Paris

The public exhibition was preceded on October 6 by a gala at the Musée Rodin attended by Joseph Zada and Mckenna Grace. The fashion connection was especially visible in Mckenna Grace’s appearance: her gown referenced Katniss Everdeen’s memorable wedding-dress imagery from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, creating a deliberate dialogue between the franchise’s past and its new cast. The choice suited an event built around the idea that clothes in Panem tell stories before a character even speaks. With Paris Fashion Week as its immediate cultural backdrop, the exhibition turns that fictional strategy outward: costume becomes both an object of film craftsmanship and a piece of live event storytelling.

The franchise expands beyond the exhibition

The campaign for Sunrise on the Reaping is also unfolding through music and Capitol-style media. Noah Kahan released “Draw You Out” on October 2 as the lead single from The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (The Album), co-written and co-produced with Aaron Dessner. The full 29-artist soundtrack, executive-produced by Dave Cobb, is scheduled for November 13, one week before the film’s U.S. theatrical release on November 20. The movie’s score also brings back James Newton Howard, continuing one of the franchise’s strongest musical through-lines. Together with the reactivated Capitol-themed promotional universe and the September trailer, the Paris installation forms part of a campaign that treats Panem not simply as a film setting but as a complete system of images, sounds, propaganda and performance.

Why Elegance Is Authority works so well at the Musée Rodin

There is an appealing contradiction in placing Panem’s aggressively manufactured glamour inside the Musée Rodin’s sculpture garden. The setting encourages visitors to study the costumes as designed objects rather than fleeting movie props, while the Capitol staging keeps their narrative function intact. Seen at close range, the exhibition reinforces one of the saga’s most durable ideas: power depends on presentation. The Capitol dresses domination as entertainment; its opponents learn to turn the same visual language back against it. For fans, the pleasure comes from recognizing iconic silhouettes and discovering new ones. For costume and production-design enthusiasts, the stronger attraction is seeing how texture, scale and construction contribute to world-building long before visual effects and editing complete the illusion.

Event recap

Where: Musée Rodin sculpture garden, 77 rue de Varenne, 75007 Paris, France.
When: October 7–8, 2026, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The exhibition was preceded by an opening gala on October 6.
What: Elegance Is Authority: The Story, Style and Power of Panem, a two-day Hunger Games costume installation featuring archival screen-worn looks and costumes connected to The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. Access is included with the standard Musée Rodin admission ticket, subject to capacity.
Film: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is directed by Francis Lawrence, based on the novel by Suzanne Collins, and stars Joseph Zada as the young Haymitch Abernathy. The film is announced for November 18, 2026 in France and November 20, 2026 in the United States.

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Synopsis : The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping
As dawn breaks on the 50th annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be selected by lottery. In District 12, Haymitch Abernathy tries not to think too much about his chances. All that matters to him is being with the girl he loves. But when he is called, all his dreams come crashing down. He is torn away from his family and his love, transported to the Capitol along with the three other tributes from District 12: a young friend who is almost like a sister to him, a compulsive gambler, and the most pretentious girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch realizes he’s been set up to fail. But he’s ready to fight… and to make sure that fight resonates far beyond the arena.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Written by Billy Ray, Michael Lesslie
Adaptation by Suzanne Collins
Based on Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
Produced by Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Francis Lawrence
Starring Joseph Zada, Jesse Plemons, Ralph Fiennes, Glenn Close, Kieran Culkin, Elle Fanning, Mckenna Grace, Maya Hawke, Whitney Peak, Kelvin Harrison Jr.
Cinematography : Jo Willems
Edited by Mark Yoshikawa
Music by James Newton Howard
Production company : Color Force
Distributed by Lionsgate
Release date : November 16, 2026 (France), November 20, 2026 (United States)

Photos and video 4K : Boris Colletier / Mulderville