A little bit over a month after Olivier Rousteing celebrated his fifteenth anniversary as artistic director at Balmain—and the eightieth anniversary of the maison’s founding—he’s stepping down. The French designer was simply 25 and dealing at Balmain below Christophe Decarnin who had reworked the enterprise together with his energy shoulders and ultra-short hemlines, when he was introduced as his successor in 2010. It was lots of stress for Rousteing, whose appointment made him the primary Black designer to helm a French luxurious home. However his debut assortment proved he was greater than as much as the duty; his low-slung trousers and opulently embroidered cropped boxy jackets turned the cool woman uniform in a single day, preserving Balmain’s signature intercourse enchantment whereas softening its extra excessive edges and making it extra wearable. It’s a glance that might go on to outline the fashion of the early 2010s.
Rousteing’s driving drive was a want to be one with the folks, to achieve the lots although his product was decidedly haute. He launched menswear in 2011 which shortly proved to be a industrial success. And he opened an Instagram account in 2013, when social media was nonetheless seen as one thing at odds with the world of luxurious. It was 2015 when he nabbed the coveted H&M designer collaboration slot. The gathering included many recreations of seems that had walked Rousteing’s personal runways. “It’s actually thrilling for me to consider seeing all the children who’ve all the time dreamed of sporting Balmain on this assortment. I like my followers on Instagram as a result of they all the time inform me precisely what they consider my designs. After each present it’s their feedback that I care most about. They inform me the items they might do something to put on, and I wished to make this assortment for them,” he informed Vogue on the time.
It wasn’t lengthy earlier than the Balmain Military was born. These had been girls who impressed him, ones who might all the time be counted on sporting his garments, chief amongst them Kim Kardashian, who additionally introduced in her household—Kendall, Kylie, Kris. et al, lengthy earlier than the style business understood the ability of their affect. In 2018, he designed the costumes for Beyoncé’s legendary Coachella efficiency—dubbed Beychella—in addition to for all of her dancers. For his tenth anniversary at Balmain, he staged a present open to the general public (6,000 folks attended) full with a efficiency by Doja Cat. In 2022 he was the third designer invited to create a couture assortment at Jean Paul Gaultier, following turns from Sacai’s Chitose Abe and Glenn Martens. In a full-circle second, his spring 2026 present happened on the similar location at his debut, although the garments had an altogether looser, extra bohemian enchantment, a logo of a person absolutely stress-free into his personal self. As he strikes on, see his finest Balmain seems in Vogue.
