FASHION PORTRAIT: OLIVIER ROUSTEING - BALMAIN

6 million followers Blush glitter shoulder pads Sexy casual chic Kim Kardashian After Saint-Laurent he is the youngest designer to have taken over a Parisian fashion house He doesn't hesitate to leave the runways to go demonstrate With or without his army He's really talented Olivier Rousteing custom-made Hello Olivier Rousteing Camille How are you feeling The deconfinement Free Back to normal life Yeah I don't know if you could call it normal The new normal as they say Yeah the new normal That's exactly it actually What was the first thing you did when you left your house The first thing I did when I left my house It's about seeing my team It was the first thing I missed because we spent two months on Zoom Skype and WhatsApp groups So I really needed to be with them And so for your Zoom calls what did you wear You were the type to wear just the top half and then below Double buttoning and then the joggers Oh I have to say there was the heatwave sometimes it was underwear the boxer shorts You spent two months doing everything via Zoom So this collection was prepared on Zoom or was it already ready No it was completely prepared on Zoom actually It was Zoom every day at least ten meetings a day with the whole team non-stop It takes forever anyway with Zoom It takes a lot of time to have to explain things So it was extremely complicated But I imagine that this period must have changed your relationship with creation How do you think this will be reflected in the collection Do you have a different relationship with fashion since the pandemic For me there are really two important themes Sustainability because we realize we only have one world So I want to protect him I want to believe in him I want to believe in a new world In a future world for future generations So I'm working on it on my next September collection Because there is a rather long process And then I would say that the Covid also taught me to feel more free when the doors open again That is to say ultimately fashion has a certain pressure against certain prejudices And I finally said to myself I want to be free I no longer want to answer prejudices I no longer feel like responding to the sometimes completely closed-minded attitudes of fashion So I thought now I want to do a show the way I want with whom I want to have a much more inclusive audience o be less afraid of judgment actually How will it manifest concretely do you think in your collections in your castings In my collections I want to work on a different way of presenting my collections to reach a much larger audience So fewer shows the fashion show format like we saw Okay I don't feel like doing fashion show formats anymore Oh là là no more Balmain show no Yes there is a Balmain show but different There is a Balmain show that will be much more inclusive Where the doors will be much more open to the world in fact I'm trying to believe it and I'm trying at the same time With the social distancing we have today Are you going to make us a lot of Balmain or not Yes of course We've already done it which was released in my last pre-collection which was presented there and we will continue of course Do you think it's something that will be permanently integrated Yes I think that's what you were saying it's the new normal The new normal What are your current inspirations I imagine it's the same being stuck at home It's not the same process for creating a collection Usually I imagine you travel read etc How did it go this time You know it's not that complicated actually I'm someone who travels a lot in my mind Finally you see I was in an orphanage when I was a child I was adopted and in fact I've always been quite alone in my head and quite free to travel alone actually So over these two months I've traveled a lot in my mind I've watched a lot of movies I've read a lot I've felt physically confined But more free in my mind to dream even more So I have read a lot a lot I have watched a lot of documentaries I also looked through a lot of Mr Balmain's archives It's a house from 1945 a postwar house I tried to tell myself how one can come out stronger from it from a crisis It's interesting that it's a post-war house Because there must have been something a bit similar to what happened It's different but what was important I think It was about getting out of a crisis whatever it was to create a figure called La Jolie Madame a figure of a strong woman A modern-day Amazon back then And finally that's what I do with Balmain and that's what I'm trying to do It's been almost ten years now since you've been at Balmain What are you going to do to celebrate I don't know actually It's still worth celebrating let's say It's huge It's worth celebrating but I still have no idea It's rare especially these days You can see the creators flying around moving from house to house It's great to have been able to really leave your mark like that In a house as important as this It's true that it's pretty crazy and I'll tell you that I still can't believe it actually Ten years thirty-four years and that's ten years I started at twenty-four at Balmain I don't know what I would do But what is certain is that I would like to celebrate Paris The city that gave me birth in fact Can you summarize the Balmain story in a few words What does the house mean to you It has been almost ten years since they said you were there I have a certain loyalty to Balmain Because when I started at Balmain I was 24 years old My president told me that we vote for meritocracy what was not necessarily obvious at the time That is ten years ago There were not many young people in fashion houses Obviously there were no blacks in a French luxury house So I have to say that I have a certain loyalty to the house And then I have always considered myself very French both international So this is what I wanted to do with Balmain What does it mean to you to be a Parisian designer A fortress between quotes patriotic A desire to keep the lights of Paris shining Finally Paris is the city of lights Therefore for me Paris Fashion Week is important It is essential for the promotion of France For its economy as well So for me that's already a huge pillar being in Paris presenting my collections in Paris Then being a new generation Frenchman in quotes But you were born in the South like me as well I was also born in the South Do Parisians live up to these stereotypes for you They say about bad moods all these things Speed the quickness the pressure of the day yes indeed that's Paris That means everything has to move very quickly Bad mood is what is part of French attitude we'll call it Parisian attitude We also know the cliché of the Parisian woman What one should love what one should not love yes it's Paris But at the same time what one also loves about Paris It is the diversity it is the elegance in attitude it is the culinary it is the beauty of our monuments The international splendor that reigns there this is all of it Paris in fact Your collections are worn by women around the world Not just Parisians actually You really knew how to open Balmain We've seen you work a lot with the Kardashians with the top models from the 90s Is there someone who hasn't worn Balmain yet whom you'd love to see in Balmain It's a very good question I'm going to answer you with a man I would have loved to dress actually I dressed his wife Michelle Obama But I would have loved to dress Barack Obama And I have the chance to dress Brigitte Macron I have dressed Mr Macron once So I would now like to dress Barack Obama Barack I think is one of the presidents who has truly marked the history of the United States And I know that you are also quite committed These past weeks fashion has been particularly targeted by the Black Lives Matter movement Are you thinking that we are really living through a historic moment Do you think this will fade away what's currently happening No I think it is indeed a historic moment I think ultimately people and the world are pointing fingers at the universes that are the least avant- garde or least connected to reality What is happening today is just a statement that fashion is not keeping up with its time Do not fight for the rights for which we all must fight I would say there are two important words in fashion Those that unfortunately have not been realized in recent years is inclusivity This elitist aspect that makes fashion always close its doors is this snobbery that has somewhat killed fashion And then the lack of diversity Ten years ago the question was what's it like being one of the few black designers of your generation It was ten years ago but I'm still asked the same question ten years later So if you're asking me how to celebrate my tenth anniversary I would say that I fight for the world to change simply I have always incorporated diversity into my collections It has always been an important word for me Otherwise sometimes certain fashion mindsets looked at me with a lot of snobbery about that too Except that what's interesting is that the people who today Post about Instagram for example over the last three days the inclusivity the diversity I would like to remind them of what they said six years ago The goal is to move things forward If there's one thing from our generation that's complicated it's cancel culture I don't know what you think about it This phenomenon on social networks where someone is decided to have taken a wrong step and their existence must be canceled It's unbearable It's a witch hunt I find it regrettable After all what I always say is that I have memories I have my memory but I keep to myself what has happened to me I'm trying to move things forward You're right you have to be in construction not in destruction During the lockdown you were very present on social media With the hashtag Balmain Ensemble initiative as well as on your own stories I saw you cooking too Oh my Fried eggs I even wondered if the first thing you did when you got out of the madness was I had to go buy some oil because I thought if it 's really that That's what they call being a fool I am a quiche in the kitchen When are the Balmain recipes Last year I worked on a big project with Cyril Lignac A festival was held for the man They had not invited 500 people as usual But 3 000 to 4 000 people at the Jardin des Plantes And all the food was made by Cyril Lignac actually Besides it's an important topic because it was for help Funds for the fight against HIV So everything we had done was for those funds But all that to say that I have a great respect for Cyril Lignac So Cyril Lignac if you're listening teach me how to make eggs Here you go I think we'll need to have some oil delivered first But you know what People loved it They still see me out in the evenings in Los Angeles or somewhere else There finally they saw Oh but it was great I am a quiche That's it If you cook who would you invite to dinner Now that we are more free and have the right to meet up with our friends Then I'm going to give you an unlikely dinner Already my grandparents who have always told me that I was a failure in the kitchen So that would already be two people I'm inviting Then I would invite Kim who told me that I love your video with the zucchini So I would tell him that I can do more than just zucchini now So that would make my grandparents Kim I would like to invite Brigitte Macron because once I was invited to the Elysée It was excellent so I would like to return the device That is good manners So really imagine the unlikely dinner but I think it's crazy My grandparents Kim Brigitte Macron I would definitely invite Beyoncé Me I would also like to if possible And then I would invite You Camille You who laughed at my Instagram for two months with my zucchini and eggs and oil I would invite you to show you that I know how to cook better Anyway you know I've been living in London for almost ten years So my palace is no longer what it was I eat anything You cut that too there you go We made a little wordplay Fashion Week but W-E-A-K Oh my there's a lot of them yeah What is a fashion faux pas a tasteless mistake for you Does it exist Of course But that has always been the case I'm really I really really don't like it but never socks with beers I have a hard time with that I'm sorry I really have a hard time But maybe it's just my closed mind about it but I really hurt a lot Do you have any guilty pleasures when it comes to fashion Shoulders A collection without shoulders is impossible Is there anything you forbid yourself from doing No You'll never see it at Balmain right That's it my problem No I forbid myself from anything Tell me a bit about the current news from Balmain The collection is released as planned even though there is no fashion show What are we going to see You're going to see a mix of the past and the present I also want to show the origins of Balmain so pieces from the past by Mr Balmain 1945-1950 and the evolution of Balmain today as well That will be a mix between the past and the present We are going to discover a room Is this an archive right Yes I'd like to introduce you to Camille We have two Camilles It is a piece from my first winter show in 2011 and so it is winter 2012 Presented at the Grand Hotel in Paris The idea was to revive a bit of the couture side The craftsmanship of the French house of Monsieur Balmain Where are these pieces stored We have archives in Tours It's very beautiful because they are mixed with the pieces he had written for Josephine Baker Brigitte Bardot and Dalida So there are my pieces there are the pieces from Mr Balmain of yesteryear There are also pieces from Karl Lagerfeld He started at Mr Balmain in 1950 I think It's a whole universe How many hours of work does a dress like that take do you think I think I'm sure it was a month of work back then Incredible So there you go Camille it was a very pleasant interview We'll cut that right away I'll tell you Second surprise maybe This dress which holds a very beautiful memory for me was Kim's dress for the Bachelorettes It was my first winter show And it's especially a dress that inspired the entire H&M collection which was sold through in 98% sales in I don't know ten minutes It was important for me to make all the Balmain pieces as accessible as possible There is therefore embroidery beads Broderie beads the canvas You know your grandmother sometimes knits the pillows So here it is a dress what I would call a very modest dress Canon Lots of memories Thank you Camille Olivier for coming today And I can't wait to discover what you've come up with during the lockdown And to see the new collection Thank you all it was a great moment And thank you for your support French Pride Charles Précisé So thank you for this interview really Olivier what's your mood now Free We are increasingly appreciating freedom when we go out of the house I think Does it mean elevated [-] [-] Go against the current Because I think fashion is also about that its strength Thinking about what will happen in six months even if you are in the present And I would say An escape Your greatest strength I think my greatest strength is not being afraid Finally sometimes I tell myself that I'm like a child who puts his finger in the fire because he doesn't realize it's burning And I think that was my strength at Balmain being sometimes too young to do things And in the end it paid off Your greatest weakness Trusting too easily For what occasions do you not tell the truth When my mother comes to see me in the backstage after the show and says "Are you okay " I say yes I'm doing great Then I just got kicked out by a magazine and you can immediately tell they didn't like my show at all So I remember telling my mother at the end of the parade It's normal she's a mother she always wants her son to feel good So that's the first one The second thing I would say Ah that's very trendy You feel so good Yes Oh my God This outfit really suits you What is your favorite hobby I love boxing I box every morning at 6:30 I have my boxing class for 1 hour and 30 minutes and it does me good How do you handle your stress By boxing What's the best advice you've ever received Suzy Minkess winter 2013 when she told me "Be yourself " Because I was biting my nails she told me "Be yourself " because it's always worth being yourself But in fact I realized something that may seem trivial but I always say interviews and it's true "I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I'm not " Sometimes fashion tends to want to please And it's better to please oneself What quality do you look for in a friend I might be too demanding which is why I don't have any friends No I'm an idiot Loyalty And the quality you value most in a lover There are so many if you want to That's why I've been single for the past 10 years There are too many can I make a list Loyalty trust funny Let me make you dream Let him challenge me Basically all of this which makes me always alone My number is 06 Do you easily forgive your friends' flaws Absolutely not That's clear isn't it Are you able to accept criticism Yes that's right I accept a lot of criticism Sometimes too much actually What is the key to a better life It sounds cliché but maybe truly feeling good with oneself From the moment you feel good about yourself people will like you I believe What would be your advice for a young creator Don't try to please others submit to yourself What's your favorite Kardashian No but What was that Is it the Proust Questions is that it Joker No no it's not Joker My favorite it's the foundation of everything it's Kris Jenner That way when you say Kris Jenner you know you've got all the girls Thank you Olivier Camille