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Share with us... Your Best & Worst Collections of Haute Couture S/S 2025
Balmain F/W 2015.16 Paris
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Vitamine W
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This guy is soooooo good at casting. 
Try not to light a cigarette near any of these clothes...
Try not to light a cigarette near any of these clothes...
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In a way she is! He is really inspired by her and it shows in the way he's styling this collection. The shiny vivid fabrics do not work for me, some tailored pieces look very JC Penney to me.
But overall I miss the mystic and feeling of drama that Christophe Decarnin gave us with each collection...
There might be interesting pieces in this collection but this collection is miles away from what I used to like in Balmain
elle_gb
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Olivier is definitely worship va va voom for sure. There're good dresses out there I could see many celebrity wear it ie Kim K?. But what I missed is coolness that they used to have being balmain's woman was much more cooler than this.
ultramarine
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I couldnt have articulated it better. This collection looks like a re-hash of old collections from OTHER fashion houses. Where's the confection? Where's the identity?
His first two collections for the house were fine, but now they're just getting tackier and tackier. It's ridiculous. 
Sure, Decarnin wasn't that inventive, but at least the girls always looked super cool. Olivier just makes them look like extras from Dynasty--which is a shame because his casting is the best past.
Surely his clothes can't be selling that well...
Sure, Decarnin wasn't that inventive, but at least the girls always looked super cool. Olivier just makes them look like extras from Dynasty--which is a shame because his casting is the best past.Surely his clothes can't be selling that well...
GivenchyHomme
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I just can't get over the ugly color combinations. Is he blind in one eye?
But in all fairness both of those collections heavily referenced YSL's work in the seventies, and according to Style.com's review that's exactly what Rousteing was referencing too. It's not such a shock that they'd have a similar feel if all three designers pulled their ideas from the same source, cause the clothes don't actually have that much in common.
It's the overall impression, the colors, the over-the-topness...
disco54
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Spike is right its very YSL, one of the reasons I liked it, was it had that bold YSL woman in spirit, the vibrant color clashes, strong shapes,glamorous, diverse casting.
Even in YSL's time, his clothes were thought of as garrish at times.
Even in YSL's time, his clothes were thought of as garrish at times.
guess taste is subjective, i think the colours are what makes it so amazing B)
GivenchyHomme
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It's funny you mention taste because that's something many people believe he lacks. Perhaps it's the influence of Kim Kardashian that's fogging up his creativity.
constanceMafioso
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As others have said, lots of Gucci influence but really not performed as well. Dislike.
Truthfully I do not understand the constant mentioning of Kim as some detrimental source of bad taste in regards to Balmain. I mean, ever since its rejuvenation has Balmain ever been tasteful???
Not to mention that if he really were that influenced by his association with the Kardashians (as opposed to it being the other way around) I doubt that he would be lowering hemlines, covering cleavage and loosening the lines of his clothes substantially. That all seems to fly in direct opposition of the well established Kardashian image, no?
Bottom line, Kim is shoehorning herself into Balmain's aesthetic and Olivier really isn't doing anything drastically different from when he started.
Cathy Horn's review says it all !
I’ve been getting around Paris on a motorcycle, a big Honda driven by a man named Olivier Santoni-Cosquer, whose company often ferries models to the shows. It’s like driving with the top down. You see the sky, the silhouettes of the buildings, the trees along the Seine. There was a full moon last night as we came down the avenue from the Rick Owens show, its beams showering the Louvre. I just sat there grinning. The city I’ve known for 30 years suddenly looked different.
Of course, some things a fresh perspective cannot help. I was amazed by the size of the crowd outside the Balmain show, mostly kids trying to get pictures of the models and celebrities. Jared Leto, Kanye West, and Kim Kardashian, with her mother, Kris Jenner, were there, Kardashian and Leto as bleached blondes. People keep saying to me that nothing has changed, but I can feel a shift in the past year. When I saw Dries Van Noten in his showroom, an hour later, he thought so, too.
“It’s a media business,” I said to Dries.
“And product, product, product,” he said.
But to stick with Balmain. For all the beaded fringe that designer Olivier Rousteing hung on the dresses — fringe the color of orange soda — and for all the expensive satin pleating, there was no artistry to it. The sex appeal was in doubt, too. Clingy lace knits revealed too much, and a girl would suffer in wide-leg satiny pants with pleats. She’d be constantly worried that her *** looked too big (and she’d be right). The bright colors and the way they were arranged in blocks, with splashy fringe, made me think of an Evel Knievel costume. Okay, now I know what to wear if I want to be shot out of a cannon.
But to me the dreariest part of Balmain, the thing that performed the shift from amusing runway spectacle to four-page spread in Hello! magazine, was the vaguely regal entrance of the West-Kardashians and their bodyguards/court attendants. It was the celebrity media scene that designers have wanted for the last ten years, but it’s starting to feel dated and out-of-touch.
Cathy Horn
The Cut
I’ve been getting around Paris on a motorcycle, a big Honda driven by a man named Olivier Santoni-Cosquer, whose company often ferries models to the shows. It’s like driving with the top down. You see the sky, the silhouettes of the buildings, the trees along the Seine. There was a full moon last night as we came down the avenue from the Rick Owens show, its beams showering the Louvre. I just sat there grinning. The city I’ve known for 30 years suddenly looked different.
Of course, some things a fresh perspective cannot help. I was amazed by the size of the crowd outside the Balmain show, mostly kids trying to get pictures of the models and celebrities. Jared Leto, Kanye West, and Kim Kardashian, with her mother, Kris Jenner, were there, Kardashian and Leto as bleached blondes. People keep saying to me that nothing has changed, but I can feel a shift in the past year. When I saw Dries Van Noten in his showroom, an hour later, he thought so, too.
“It’s a media business,” I said to Dries.
“And product, product, product,” he said.
But to stick with Balmain. For all the beaded fringe that designer Olivier Rousteing hung on the dresses — fringe the color of orange soda — and for all the expensive satin pleating, there was no artistry to it. The sex appeal was in doubt, too. Clingy lace knits revealed too much, and a girl would suffer in wide-leg satiny pants with pleats. She’d be constantly worried that her *** looked too big (and she’d be right). The bright colors and the way they were arranged in blocks, with splashy fringe, made me think of an Evel Knievel costume. Okay, now I know what to wear if I want to be shot out of a cannon.
But to me the dreariest part of Balmain, the thing that performed the shift from amusing runway spectacle to four-page spread in Hello! magazine, was the vaguely regal entrance of the West-Kardashians and their bodyguards/court attendants. It was the celebrity media scene that designers have wanted for the last ten years, but it’s starting to feel dated and out-of-touch.
Cathy Horn
The Cut
Robin Givhan's review -
At Balmain, Rousteing was inspired to celebrate France’s diversity. He aimed to speak of liberty and artistic freedom using the language of clothes.
“As recent event have reminded us, France has a long and proud history of defending essential liberties and artistic freedom,” he wrote. “We celebrate that Parisian tradition, as well as the evolution of my city into a truly global melting pot.” And one so wanted his collection to be as eloquent and moving as the words he put on paper.
Instead it was mix of broad shoulders, wide belts, lace jumpsuits, sunburst pleated trousers, dresses with tiers of ruffles and a color palette based on orange, purple and pine green.
Color can be one of a designer’s most powerful tools — defining precisely how a garment makes the wearer, and those around her, feel. Rousteing’s jarring mix of colors — sometimes recalling brightly woven kente cloth, sometimes recalling the backdrop of a ’70s disco — left one feeling uneasy, off-kilter and just a wee bit woozy.
His lace jumpsuits often looked as though they were stingily cut through the torso and the crotch. Trousers were bulky and overwhelming, with one pair stitched with box pleats that made even the lithe model wearing them look extra wide.
When collections go wrong in color, silhouette and proportion, one can’t help wondering: What happened? Would a post-mortem reveal a designer too infatuated with the 1970s and ’80s to separate the enduring aesthetics of those eras from the discordant ones? Have voices of dissent been shut out of his atelier?
Artistic liberty must be protected. The individual should be given room to breath. But fashion should further that message, not detract from it with unbecoming cacophony.
washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog
At Balmain, Rousteing was inspired to celebrate France’s diversity. He aimed to speak of liberty and artistic freedom using the language of clothes.
“As recent event have reminded us, France has a long and proud history of defending essential liberties and artistic freedom,” he wrote. “We celebrate that Parisian tradition, as well as the evolution of my city into a truly global melting pot.” And one so wanted his collection to be as eloquent and moving as the words he put on paper.
Instead it was mix of broad shoulders, wide belts, lace jumpsuits, sunburst pleated trousers, dresses with tiers of ruffles and a color palette based on orange, purple and pine green.
Color can be one of a designer’s most powerful tools — defining precisely how a garment makes the wearer, and those around her, feel. Rousteing’s jarring mix of colors — sometimes recalling brightly woven kente cloth, sometimes recalling the backdrop of a ’70s disco — left one feeling uneasy, off-kilter and just a wee bit woozy.
His lace jumpsuits often looked as though they were stingily cut through the torso and the crotch. Trousers were bulky and overwhelming, with one pair stitched with box pleats that made even the lithe model wearing them look extra wide.
When collections go wrong in color, silhouette and proportion, one can’t help wondering: What happened? Would a post-mortem reveal a designer too infatuated with the 1970s and ’80s to separate the enduring aesthetics of those eras from the discordant ones? Have voices of dissent been shut out of his atelier?
Artistic liberty must be protected. The individual should be given room to breath. But fashion should further that message, not detract from it with unbecoming cacophony.
washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog
Spike, you know I always look for you when fashion month comes around, however, the more I see his collections, the more I feel like they didn't make a wise choice in placing him. I'm not saying that the Balmain house is something to be revered, however, I feel like he just didn't have enough training before he got signed on. I don't understand HIM, what he stands for, on any level…except for maybe in the area of celebrity. He definitely LOVES being the celebrity designer, partying with his friends, but even after all of these seasons, I still don't understand wtf is he SAYING with his work. I like that he has this "throw-sh*t-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks" attitude, but damn, most of the time I'm thinking he's the intern who got lucky.
Totally agree. Also, the least flattering clothes ever
