Gilded opulence has always been at the heart of Olivier Rousteing’s Balmain. This season, he held the label’s show at the Palais Garnier where the baroque interiors complimented the barrage of studs, crystals, sequins, fringe and feathers that embellished dresses, jackets, trousers, heels and boxy leather bags. The famed opera house has special significance to the French designer, who visited it with his parents twenty years ago, and is where he first experienced the beauty of ballet. The allure of the ballet continued to intrigue the designer and earlier this year, Rousteing designed costumes for the Sebastien Bertaud ballet Renaissance that was performed at the Palais Garnier in June.
The Balmain army remains a strong brigade of supermodels. Natalia Vodianova opened the show, followed by Natasha Poly, Karolina Kurkova, Jourdan Dunn, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Elsa Hosk, who walked alongside newer additions to the fashion infantry including Chu Wong and Kiko Arai.
Each season, Rousteing refines his ideas of fierce femininity. For spring/summer 2018, there were the glamazon gowns that have always been present in his collections, but also monochrome striped fringe dresses, frayed boucle skirts with matching jackets and crystal studded sequined pants. Leather trousers with paper bag waistlines were flecked with studs and overalls came in check boucle and patent leather with heavy gold chain straps. Pencil skirts dazzled with overlapping motifs hand-beaded in a multitude of colors were paired with logo’ed Balmain sweatshirts.
Click through to see the collection up-close as it walked the runway:
