The Master of Fashion’s Digital Generation

Adopted at the age of one after being put in an orphanage in 1985, Oliver has risen to the pinnacle of the fashion industry. Reared in

Bordeaux, France. Rousteing attended the Ecole Supérieure des Arts et Techniques de la Mode (ESMOD) in Paris to study

fashion. After graduation, he went to work at Roberto Cavalli, where he was in charge of both the women’s and

the men’s ready-to-wear collections for five years. He joined Balmain in 2009 as a women’s ready-to-wear designer,

eventually succeeding Christoph Decarnin as creative director in 2011, at only the age of 24. Olivier being named as creative director of

Balmain made him Paris’ youngest creative director since the legendary Yves Saint Laurent. His debut collection for Balmain was a

critical hit. The crisp tailoring from Routeing’s predecessor was carried over to the Resort 2012 collection, but the couture look was a

little pushed. He stays true to the label’s rock-chic aesthetic while injecting his couture elegance into the soul of the bread(and it’s

working). Menswear now accounts for over 40% of Balmain’s income since his arrival. Balmain also became the first French fashion

house to surpass the million-follower mark on Instagram showcasing a key factor in the brands connectivity to the younger, up and

coming generation.

The designer has perfected the art of appealing to the digital youth with his ability to strike a posture and his aesthetic embrace of high-

octane power maximalism. He is renowned as a social-media-friendly, celebrity-magnet designer. His “Balmain Army” is a force of

worldwide recognized top models including names like Jourdan Dunn , and he is one of the pioneers of Instagram marketing. Music is

an essential component of Balmain’s distinct aesthetic and is frequently the subject of advertisements. According to the designer, it is

hard to detach fashion from music since his generation came up with the belief that there must be a “full serving of the other.” The

brand’s collections and marketing frequently showcase his affection for his birthplace of Paris, with it’s immense beauty and distinct

flair.

Under Massimo Pimbini, who was named CEO in 2017 of Balmain, the label has become synonymous with red carpet fashion. In May

2017, Balmain and L’Oréal Paris partnered on a lipstick range created by Rousteing, followed by a design of the costumes for Sébastien

Bertaud’s opera Renaissance, a 27-minute dance that premiered at the Opéra de Paris on June 13, 2017. Beyoncé commissioned

Roustieng to design three couture dresses for the 2018 Coachella festival. Rousteing is a vocal supporter of diversity in the fashion

industry. He also effectively incorporated Asian aspects into the clothing of a European design business, expanding the label’s

developing Asian market. And in 2019, Cara Delevigne fronted Balmain’s spring/summer 2019 campaign, which pays homage to

Janet Jackson’s album artwork for Janet.

Balmain is one of the first companies in 2019 to join Instagram’s

new shopping function. Rousteing’s Balmain Army, a

group of famous young men and women of the designer’s age

who wear the brand, includes popular virtual influencers like

Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid. Rousteing’s digital-savvy

prompted the launch of a Balmain-themed Snapchat selfie filter

and the Balmain app in 2019 in collaboration with Yoox, Net-a-

Porter Group, and the Mazarine luxury e-commerce platform.

He has established a revered reputation and amassed an

outstanding Instagram following of over six million for himself

and almost eleven million for the company.

“ Wonder Boy “ ,the upcoming documentary of fashions leading

luxury designer face, delves into his childhood abandonment

and subsequent adoption, and how these events inspired him to

“aim higher than the others” and become “a kind of superhuman” as he investigates his roots and looks for his biological mother. With

characteristic honesty and sincerity, Olivier addresses 20 questions that go to the heart of who we are. Though he had previously

assumed he was of mixed ethnicity, he later found that his birth mother is Somali from Djibouti, and his birth father is Ethiopian.

Olivier Rousteing is an inspiration to MANY aspiring designers who, until recently, did not have a successful mixed-

race role model. Nowadays, you find Rousteing working on furthering the growth of Balmain.