“What is
Balmain is what is me,” said
Olivier Rousteing at a press conference this morning for his
H&M collaboration.
To his legion—#Army, rather—of fans, this is a very specific signifier.
Thanks to Instagram, they know Rousteing—his likes, dislikes, friends,
family, faces—without ever having met him. Whether they actually splurge
on Balmain or not, they are a part of his world. But if the world of
Balmain proper in Paris represents Rousteing and his fans’ future, the
show he put on for his H&M collaboration tonight was a lesson in the
past that made him who he is.
The set was a beautified subway terminal that played backdrop to a
host of dancers voguing through the scene, up and down staircases. The
performance may have seemed a random, highfalutin tie-in, but those
paying close attention to Rousteing’s origin story know he was a dancer
by night while he worked as a design assistant by day in Paris. Then
came the supermodels in his jewel-toned and jewel-encrusted pieces,
lower-priced but still hand-embellished versions of clothes shown in
previous Balmain collections. Why produce remakes of past hits? Because
Rousteing remembers the feeling of being a twenty something—and even
younger than that—lusting for runway items, and he wants to deliver the
goods to his current band of twenty something fans.
Runway show, glittering clothing, and celebrity sightings aside, the
high of the evening for those fans—and maybe Rousteing too—was a
surprise performance by the Backstreet Boys. Out came Nick, Kevin,
Brian, A.J., and Howie decked head-to-toe in Balmain x H&M to
reprise their hits of the ’90s and ’00s. Even if Rousteing’s band of
muses,
Kendall Jenner and
Gigi Hadid
among them, are too young to remember BSB from the first time around,
they were treated to a peek into the mind of the man whom they follow
and admire. So were the shoppers who cued up in droves to shop the
collection before it hits stores on November 5. There was significant
crowding around the gold-buttoned, double-breasted blazers for sale, the
same style that Rousteing wore to take his bow tonight.
