Although he referenced it back in Fall 2020 menswear as part of his wild and much wider personal story, this was the first time in 13 years at Balmain that Olivier Rousteing dedicated a full collection to his childhood home of Bordeaux. It was also in many ways a love-note to Lydia Rousteing, his adoptive mother, who along with husband Bruno-Jean raised the young designer there until he left the city to study fashion in Paris (before rapidly leaving Paris to work for Roberto Cavalli).
“My mom came here today and she loved the looks,” he reported backstage pre-show. “And she reminded me of memories from being a kid. She was always wearing a trench—you know, really French—and we would go on a picnic and throw a gingham blanket on the grass.” If last month’s menswear show sprang from Rousteing’s African heritage, this womenswear sequel spoke to his identity as a Bordelais.
The regional capital’s most celebrated product, its Cru Bourgeois wines, were reflected in the Dionysian abundance of grapes that grew across the collection. They hung from hands in fearsome bunch bags in metal, coiled around the body as inlaid shapes in a peplum-defined black leather dress, nestled in glass and metal beading on bodices, were printed on black or purple silk dresses, trenches and tailoring, and came woven in the patterned fabrication of ruffle hemmed or floor length dresses in tapestry fabric.
Rousteing’s second territorial decorative reference was the chief ingredient in Escargots à la Bordelaise. The brittle twisting helix of a snail shell was molded into a substantially fossilized golden breastplate, or into a bodice, or as earrings, or used to decorate the fastenings on belts and bags.
These signatures played across multiple remixes of the trench coat, all armed with the same formidable buttons that Rousteing applies to the house’s signature blazers. The trench was fortified with mighty shoulders, deconstructed into a hooded crop top and skirt, reimagined as a product of Pierre Balmain’s nipped-waist and flute-hipped Jolie Madame shape or cut into leather. Gingham, a surface reflection of Rousteing’s long-tumultuous and now becalmed internal duality (as well as that picnic blanket), was reproduced in monochrome or navy and silver crystal overlapping stripes on dresses. Some dresses and tops came with wickedly sharp and emphasized peak lapels on the left side edged with more metal for more emphasis: these were sometimes placed above ruched roomy pants Rousteing said were designed after a 1960s Judo-inspired model first created by the founder.
Touching details that reflected the domestic nostalgia at the heart of this collection included the Balmain branded net shopping bags half-filled with artificial fruit. Another notable element was the age diversity in the casting, which you didn’t have to be called Sigmund to surmise might well be linked to this collection’s connection with Rousteing’s childhood. However, he stressed, this was more than mere memoir: “You know it’s really nice to see all these incredible fashion shows all around the world but it’s often the same models. Sometimes I feel there is a uniformity of models, and that we need to be careful. Because we are celebrating the beauty of diversity.” That last sentence epitomizes the design credo through which Rousteing molds the lessons of his experience and expertise into such specific and terrific works of fashion.
