Casablanca – For the first time, L’Oréal Paris brought Le Défilé to Morocco, turning Casablanca’s Sacré-Cœur Cathedral into a local window onto its annual Paris Fashion Week show on September 28.
The watch party marked the Moroccan debut of an event that L’Oréal Paris has staged since 2017. This year’s edition carried the theme “Express Your Worth,” building on the brand’s long-running “Because You’re Worth It” message and its focus on confidence, self-expression and women’s empowerment.
L’Oréal Paris describes Le Défilé as a meeting point between beauty and fashion, bringing its international ambassadors together with designers and beauty experts while making the show accessible beyond the traditional fashion crowd through a global livestream.
Casablanca gave that international message a local cast. Among the women invited to the event were Moroccan model and presenter Leila Hadioui, actress and content creator Ouidad Lemniai, Fatine Zaïmi, Moroccan Mirage, Imane Khallad, Amira Mourtaday and Marie Batoul. The guest list brought together women working across fashion, beauty, entertainment and digital content, reflecting the different spaces in which the brand now places its conversation around self-expression.
The evening also made room for a Moroccan artistic moment after the screens turned toward Paris. Ouidad performed several of her signature songs, adding a live local performance to a night otherwise built around an international fashion event. Her presence connected the beauty brand’s global imagery with a Moroccan creative voice, rather than leaving the Casablanca gathering as a simple retransmission of something happening elsewhere.
This local element sits at the center of L’Oréal Paris’ wider approach to Le Défilé. The brand has organized watch parties in international cities to extend the experience beyond Paris, where this year’s runway brought together names including Viola Davis, Jane Fonda, Eva Longoria, Aishwarya Rai, Kendall Jenner, Cara Delevingne, Simone Ashley, Andie MacDowell, Aja Naomi King and Kristen Bell.
In Paris, the show took place at Place Joffre, facing the Eiffel Tower and the École Militaire, as part of Paris Fashion Week, where L’Oréal Paris serves as an official partner. The runway combined fashion with the brand’s beauty expertise, with global makeup artist Harold James and hair expert Stéphane Lancien leading the beauty teams.
In Casablanca, Laila Benjelloun Touimi, General Manager of L’Oréal Maroc, linked the brand’s familiar slogan to a broader idea of women knowing their worth and taking their place.
“Women create, build businesses, inspire, push boundaries, and reshape the norms of femininity, each in her own way. ‘Because You’re Worth It’ is a belief we are proud to bring to life here in Morocco. Because every woman has her own beauty, every woman has her own voice, and every woman is worth it,” Benjelloun Touimi said.
L’Oréal Maroc has operated in the country for decades, tracing its local presence to 1943 and becoming L’Oréal Maroc in 2000. Today, the subsidiary markets more than 18 international beauty brands in Morocco.
The result was less about reproducing Paris in Casablanca and more about giving the Moroccan audience its own place within a global L’Oréal Paris event. Fashion supplied the spectacle, beauty supplied the setting, and Moroccan women working in different creative fields gave the night its local voice.
