Olivier Rousteing is still younger than 40. Yet he is also the third longest non-founder Creative Director in Luxury Fashion (after Evergreen Véronique Nichanian at Hermès Menswear and the powerful Ian Griffiths of Max Mara). So even as fashion -cycles because of his latest red wedding moment, Rousteing’s combination of veteran experience and youthful potential enables him to take a pragmatic and optimistic view.
In his office he said: “A designer must change: developing through reinvention. So it’s not just a house that is bored with a designer and wants to change – the designer should be bored if they don’t change how and what they do. You keep your DNA, but you make very different albums.”
At Balmain, Rousteing remains both signed at the label if we are committed to constant reinvention. The photography of this resort -lookbooks reflected his intention to approach the collection from a new perspective, while using his deep expertise in the company to maximize performance.
In women’s clothing, a focus on bouclé pieces in pastel controls (a bit Without idea), Black and some racier color combos kept aside in the showroom reflected the fact that about 20% of the ready-made pieces of Balmain are in tweed. A seasonal flowers reworked from an original Pierre Balmain was present in some of the several new fabrications of a growing core line of Balmain hand bags; The national anthem (belt buckle), the synchronization (chain), the Ébène (par-baked croissant) and the tightly tailored shuffle.
Knitted dressing dresses and a split skirt flower aside, there was a remarkable step away from Bodycon in the direction of a focus on innovative detailed oversized customization in wool, including Prince of Wales that often was cut and placed in Silhouette-Skewing next to each other matching shorts. A jacket that was so spacious that you could put it on Airbnb came up with a felt monet-like print that reflected the artistic passions of Pierre Balmain, Rousteing reported. His wigblies in the column ediment were delivered this season in a Shearling manufacturing, as well as leather and worn against lingerie dresses. Cocon-like capes in Peach or Lemon Cashmere were striking wardrobe pieces.
Men’s clothing played a radical-conservative gamble with contrasting extreme customized-angular and appropriate, or oversized and softer-with a while of denim, leather or jacquard sportswear. Formal shoes were raised from banaility by raised soles and extruded metal welding. You could see both the bourgeois French paradigms and Straatsilhouettes converted to custom made fabricages. Loaging in the showroom were a lot of non-shot but still very photogenic pieces, including labyrinth pattern shirt-and-short sets, learning and woolen stadium jacket blouson hybrids and bouclé precautions.
Said Rousteing: “The real question is always what you want to imagine? And although my answer changes through the seasons, it always relates to going back to the past and bringing it to the present to build the future. This is why I always have this conversation with the original work of Pierre Balmain and that dialogue is looking for new ways.”