Balmain
Designer: Olivier Rousteing

• “With the thumping Led Zeppelin music, it was hard not to get caught up in this magic carpet ride. Where would you wear these clothes if not on stage? Who knows. But if you have the bravado (and the big bucks), you’re gonna stop traffic.” [All The Rage/Los Angeles Times]
• “With the spiky, in-trend ’80s shoulders, ‘upbeat’ and ‘modern’ it definitely felt. But ‘real’–given the collection’s ample Lurex stripes, chandelier crystals, and metallic leather tweed–was quite far off the mark.” [AP]
• “Maybe a bit too close to home for those who donned these looks during their original heyday. But for the style set a few decades younger? There’s plenty to relish…” [Daily Front Row]
• “Paris is the grand old lady of la mode–couture was invented here, after all, and ready-to-wear too–and the local fashion elite tends to take itself immensely seriously. So bravo to Olivier Rousteing, the twenty-something enfant of the French designer syndicate, whose barmily baroque Balmain collection punctured the usual pomp today.” [The Daily Telegraph]
• “Positively vibrating with energy.” [ELLEuk.com]
• “You can look at Balmain today as a show-off brand for rich Russians. But there is something deeper behind the magnificent fabrics and exceptional workmanship. It is an uncompromising love of haute couture spelled out in gold. And pink. And amethyst. And emerald green, to name but a few.” [International Herald Tribune]
• “Rousteing needs to take his talents as a designer, because he is talented, in a dramatically new direction. Only then will this house stop looking like a parody of itself.” [NOWFASHION]
• “Speaking of fabrics, many of them, like moire, silk, and gold lamé, had a metallic candy-wrapper quality. That, combined with the proportions of the clothing and the large chandelier earrings the models wore, helped this offering scream with the same kind of glam-rock urgency that has fueled all of Rousteing’s outings for Balmain.” [POPSUGAR Fashion]
• “Olivier Rousteing name-checked Paul Poiret and Christian Lacroix in addition to his label’s founder, Pierre Balmain, today. Put them all together and you still wouldn’t match the irrepressible exuberance of this young designer.” [Style.com]
• “The maximalists are massing somewhere out there on the borders of fashion’s vast tundra of fall black and gray. It’s a smallish mass, admittedly, but it contains some major names: Tom Ford, Donatella Versace, Peter Dundas of Pucci, Roberto Cavalli. And then there’s Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing, the only twentysomething amongst them, who is a committed new-generation member of the fashion party, which canvases on the firm belief that dressing up is a defense against gloomy times.” [Vogue.com]
• “There’s one thing Olivier Rousteing at Balmain has it’s the courage of his convictions.” [Vogue.com UK]
• “When more is more: a Balmain gold suit that can take you from Alexis Carrington’s living room to Captain Kirk’s starship.” [Wmagazine.com]
• “‘More is more’ has been the inferred house motto, but sometimes enough is enough.” [WWD]