On the third day of Paris Fashion Week, Olivier Rousteing presented Balmain’s Spring/Summer 2025 collection to a star-studded audience. And from the moment the first look stepped onto the runway—a mini dress embellished with the image of a red-lipped face with a manicured hand—it was clear that the creative director was inspired by the brand’s recent revival of its beauty side of the business, with plenty of references celebrating this new chapter.
It was just last month that Balmain announced the launch Les Éternels de Balmain, a collection of ten genderless fragrances that marked the house’s fresh foray into the beauty sphere after years of dipping its proverbial toe in cosmetics and haircare. Not only did we see multiple looks hand-embroidered with hundreds of thousands of pearlescent beads that made up painted faces, but nods seemed to permeate across the entire collection. Some references were more conceptual, like painterly prints, while others were more overt, such as the fragrance bottle clutch bags, stilettos with lip motifs and eyeshadow palette purses.
In his decade with the brand, Rousteing has surely left a profound mark, but this season’s fiercely pointed shoulders had many reminiscing about the brand’s transformation under his predecessor Christophe Decarnin. Rousteing was Decarnin’s assistant, and has long embraced this modern signature of the brand, but this specific conical-capped silhouette was brimming with nostalgia. The French designer did well to reaffirm his evolution of the brand with more relaxed silhouettes, tailoring and high-octane eveningwear, of course.
Another signature Rousteing revived for this season? The inclusion of models from multiple generations on his runway. Particularly within a collection that celebrates new beauty during a time when the market feels somewhat saturated, the show’s diversity and playful remixing of fashion and beauty, struck the right chord.
This story first appeared on GRAZIA International.
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