Olivier Rousteing’s’s spring show for Balmain coincided with the official launch of a new range of perfumes by licensee Estée Lauder Cos., and the designer said backstage he’s convinced that fashion and beauty will further converge in the future in unexpected ways.
“I wanted to include the beauty world into the fashion world, and I believe that that’s going to be a really strong twist for the future,” he said.
As a guest couturier at Jean Paul Gaultier for fall 2022, Rousteing raised eyebrows — and nearly broke the internet — by designing a glass top that closely resembled that brand’s torso-shaped Le Male perfume bottle, and a skirt evoking its tin-can packaging.
Here, the Balmain perfume iconography was as subtle as the makeup-colored silk satin that teased a lingerie launch at the end of the show, and sledgehammer obvious in bustier bodices evoking the shape and grooved textures of Balmain’s new lozenge-shaped bottles.
Les Éternels de Balmain, a collection of eight new fragrances, landed on select counters at the end of August and could generate about $50 million in retail sales during its first year in tight distribution.
Rousteing seemed to tease imminent extensions into lipstick and nail care with his offbeat opening looks. Red mouths and painted fingers appeared as dense, glittering embroideries on evening columns, sculptural cocktail dresses, jumpsuits and cropped jackets with jutting pogoda shoulders.
During a scrum with journalists, Rousteing recounted how much of a contrarian he’s been in fashion, running in his own direction when minimalism, streetwear, normcore or quiet luxury reigned as the trends du jour.
He continues to stake claim to the don’t-mess-with-me shoulders and intense couture workmanship that have defined his 14-year tenure at Balmain, along with recurrent motifs like Breton stripes, busy tweeds and gold hardware — signposts of French fashion and ingredients in the style promulgated by Pierre Balmain starting in 1945.
“In a moment where fashion industry is kind of struggling on where to go, I think there is nothing more important than, before trying to be original, to go back back to your own origins,” he said, wearing a jacket with the same jutting shoulders he put on runway. “I think the recipe of fashion is to not be trendy. The recipe of fashion is to be you. And this is a really interesting shift, because when I was younger, I was trying so hard to be the cool kid.”
Now 38, Rousteing also continues to rally for inclusivity in fashion.
“When I started in 2011, there was such a lack of inclusivity. I was the only Black designer in a French luxury house, and I had to fight for so long,” he said. “Obviously this fight is not over, but for some reason now I have other fights.”
Age is his latest cause, and hence his cast spanned in age from about 20 to 70. Paulina Porizkova, 59, was the first model out in the finale lingerie, and she and the designer shared a long hug.
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