F  L  A  U  N  T

![Alt Text]() “I enjoy pushing envelopes, thinking a bit outside the box and saying exactly what I feel to anyone who cares to listen,” said Olivier Rousteing in a press note that ended with “while continuing to respect the standards, techniques and skills that this house has long mastered, we’ve played with cuts and tailoring, creating new silhouettes and styles that reflect the way my generation wants to dress today.” Over the last seven years since taking over as the creative director at Balmain, Olivier Rousteing has managed to create a very specific style and silhouette borderline the sparkling, the super short micro dresses and very large protruding shoulders that the designer refer to above as how he see his new generation of consumers dress. With an apt for digital skills in manipulating social media, Rousteing has created an ‘army’ as he refers to his ardent supporters on and off line that follow his every move and adopt his vision of fashion. Women and recently some men as well completely deck out in their sparkling Balmain head to toe outfits. These guests are part of the Balmain Army carrying forth the designer’s principal stylistic approach. Like them or hate them, they are showing up in larger and larger numbers all dressed in recognized Balmain’s signature. That said, did he accomplish the tasks he set out to create new silhouettes using the maison’s tradition of craftsmanship? The Napoleon era public statues and monuments around Paris like the Luxor obelisk at Place de la Concorde, carvings on the Foire du Caire building from 1798 and the Fontaine du Fellah from 1806 on rue de Sèvres serves to provide the inspiration for the hieroglyphic symbols on black and white cotton knit short dresses or on pagoda shoulder jackets or the special fold of fabric on Egyptian statues now express in fan arc pleating on a white long sleeve short dress. Ancient plastering find expression on black and white print denim jackets and cargo pants. Often the designer carries his ideas to extreme like a black sequined circular fan shape sleeve deep v-neck short dress. There are much less elaborate embroideries this time than in season’s past - a short tweed and lace dress has silver embroidered metallic shoulders. Stood out among the more evening ensembles are realistic simple offering like a stone leather biker jackets or one in black leather with large white leather lapels, jeans in plain and prints, and a relaxed white hooded jacket pant suit. A series of nude color near sheer jackets and dresses seemed slightly off message while the range of denim offerings are sure sellers at retail. However one thinks of Rousteing’s Balmain clothes, the designer is at the forefront of social and technology issues. Being an adopted child in a white French family who has to confront the racism that is dominant in his childhood as well as in the fashion environment, Rousteing pioneered diversity on the runway not because it was then a hot issue but because it was the right thing to do personally. For today show, Rousteing works with Oculus, the company that specializes in virtual reality, to broadcast via an Oculus headset to fully immersive live show experience far away from the actual runway. The designer used virtual reality models for his fall 2018 ad campaign instead of the crop of top models that populated his past advertisements. Technology is used just as diversity to democratize fashion on a global stage. Rousteing also stands up for his uncompromising fashion vision.

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Photos courtesy of Balmain