Madelyn Cline Does Paris Fashion Week Right—With Champagne and Hash Browns
Next time I attend Paris Fashion Week, remind me to take a page from Madelyn Cline’s book and do it with the same laid-back enjoyment that the actress emanated ahead of Rabanne’s spring/summer 2024 show.
“The environment is best described as chaotic good,” she tells me from her Paris hotel room, where she’s preening and primping with one of her best friends, her glam and styling teams, and photographer Jeff Thibodeau, who captured the morning exclusively for ELLE.com.
“Champagne before the show. And before the jet lag hit.”
When Cline isn’t styling herself or being dressed by iconic fashion houses, she often works with celebrity stylist Mimi Cuttrell for events and red carpets. “I feel so lucky to work with her,” Cline says. “She also helps me pack sometimes, because I’m a mess.” She says mess, I say chaotic good. And she’s no mess at all, to be honest. Today, she’s well-rested and ready for fashion-fueled madness. In fact, she hasn’t done much other than chill out since landing in Paris. “I love laying in bed and rotting after traveling.”
The Outer Banks and Glass Onion star does love the City of Lights, though. Everything about it, she tells me. “Paris is so sexy, and the energy during fashion week is perfection.”
“Dainty lacy details.”
“I’m so excited for the show,” Cline adds. “I love Rabanne’s unconventional use of materials to create almost otherworldly designs…Rabanne, to me, feels very ethereal. Almost fever dreamlike.”
For the big event, she chose a light pink and purple frock (by Rabanne, naturally). It’s lacy, semi-sheer in portions, and printed. She exclaims: “I’ve never seen anything like it, and it’s comfy!” Accessories were kept to a minimum, allowing the dress to take center stage.
“My camera, my Rabanne purse, and my Fame perfume by Rabanne.”
Instead of dripping in jewels, she wears Fame, a Rabanne fragrance. “It’s very Parisian and it’s a little incense-y.” She picks up on its notes of jasmine, like the kind that grew in her backyard as a kid.
“We always start with music and food,” she says. Cline describes her getting-ready playlist for me, which includes Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO, along with other bangers from Missy Elliot, Dua Lipa, and, of course, the Ken song. As for the food, the menu is “champagne and hash browns.” Only the finest.
“I think we were listening to ‘Party Rock Anthem’?”
Despite swirling rumors about her love life as of late, Cline conducts herself like a true girl’s girl (as evidenced by the hash browns). When I ask what her ideal Parisian date night would entail, she answers: a girl’s night in. “Or out. Maybe both.”
Click through Cline’s getting-ready diary for the Rabanne SS24 show at Paris Fashion Week in our gallery below:
Associate Fashion Commerce Editor
Meg is the Associate Fashion Commerce Editor at ELLE.com where she researches trends, tests products, and looks for answers to all your burning questions. She also co-writes a monthly column, Same Same But Different. Meg has previously written for Cosmopolitan and Town & Country. Her passions include travel, buffalo sauce, and sustainability. She will never stop hoping for a One Direction reunion tour.