Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/1414025
I fi rst encountered the magnetism of Olivier Rousteing while working at W magazine. The fi rst Black designer to head a major French fashion house, Balmain' s Rousteing was seemingly born a press darling. Yet, celebrations collided with put downs: there was something about those fi rst years of coverage across just about every glossy title that felt less like support and more like tokenism. W' s 2014 profi le of the designer, titled Phresh Out the Runway,ยบ starred Rihanna, Iman and Naomi Campbell in Rousteing' s chunky bamboo earrings, beaded chokers and matching knitted dresses with abacus rows. The images captured by photographer Emma Summerton struck me as tone deaf, which I pointed out to my bosses. They told me no one would care. They were right. There was no online fuss, just crickets. Now, that would never happen. Not because we have the @DietPrada police but because pioneers like Rousteing followed their own instincts for what Balmain should look like rather than caving to fashion's worst. Named creative director at 25, Rousteing spent his late twenties ignoring calls to tone down and scale back his active social media feed and celebrity ties, especially to the music industry. Today, Rousteing's early muses, Rihanna and Kim Kardashian to name two, are unequivocally the most important fashion icons of our time. Not to mention the ubiquity of social media as a tool for fashion brands low and high. In 2021, Rousteing's prescient vision for the future feels almost psychic, yet it also reveals the depths of the industry's elitism and narrow mindedness. "I'm really proud when I go to see fashion schools now because I can be the example. When I was younger, I didn't have that example," Rousteing explains. "But as a designer, you cannot be ashamed of the music you listen to and the icons of your time, you have to embrace them in your work. Not everyone needs to be infl uenced by the same mood board of the 60s and 70s and girls like Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin. I fi ght against that because I care about the future. I care about the new generation. I don't want them to suffer from the same frustrations." I tell Rousteing over the phone that the W profi le was one of the most memorable things I worked on; the imagery I understood at the time was immediate canon. It registered like Elizabeth Taylor's jewels at Sotheby's. I told him I knew I was in the presence of instant iconography, a witness of my generation. In a recent podcast interview with Tim Blanks for Business of Fashion looking back on his past decade at the brand, Rousteing Rousteing's aviation inspired Fall 2021 collection blurred the rough edges of his embellished utilitarianism with candy- colored knits and padding. 182 BAL HARBOUR