Balmain Spring 2024 Was All Roses (Despite That One Thorn)

Dhani Mau

September 27, 2023 at 6:08 PM·4 min read

Balmain Spring 2024.<p>Photo: Launchmetrics Spotlight</p> — Balmain Spring 2024.
Photo: Launchmetrics Spotlight

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As we've all heard many times, every rose has its thorn, and unfortunately for Balmain, this idiom manifested itself quite literally in the creation of Olivier Rousteing's Spring 2024 collection for the house. The designer famously shared on Instagram, just a week ago, that 50 looks from the collection had been stolen — presumably any designer's worst nightmare. But clearly, Rousteing has a strong team behind him, because any last-minute scrambling was in no way obvious on the runway.

Like last season, Rousteing started with the goal of celebrating founder Pierre Balmain's legacy, pulling couture pieces and sketches from the house's archives to reference. Balmain, the man, was a big fan of roses, which became Spring 2024's preeminent motif. The brand teased this on Instagram prior to the show by alluding to that Miranda Priestley quote; and one could argue that these florals are, in fact, groundbreaking — or, at least, impressive feats of construction.

The collection starts out quiet, even somber, with black-and-white pieces in classic silhouettes. But for the many editorial, statement-making looks, the house built bouquets out of patent leather, rubber, latex, porcelain and recycled plastic bottles, using them to accent everything from blazers to coats to mini dresses to rompers to handbags. The loudest looks feature 3-D florals and birds in vibrant colors covering sculptural cage dresses. (Rousteing couldn't let a whole collection go by without something completely over-the-top.)

But on softer dresses and tops covered in polka dots (another of the founding designer's favorite motifs), one or two large rosettes make for a more wearable proposition. There's also a romantic rose print used for shapely dresses, skirts and tops in red, white and black. The strongest pieces are the dresses featuring only one or two colors, allowing for the rose motif and overall construction to shine. The square-toe pumps, shown in a variety of garden hues, are also quite desirable.

"It's clear that it's the spirit of the rose — the joy, beauty and love associated with that flower — that's driving this collection. Because we all could use a whole lot more joy, beauty and love today," Rousteing wrote in the show notes, followed by a caveat. "Love is complex — every rose, after all, comes with its thorns." There are literal thorns incorporated into Spring 2024's clothes and accessories, and the figurative thorn on everyone's minds as they entered the show venue: the robbery. Rousteing addressed it at the end of the show notes.

"The recent robbery of fifty of our pieces was definitely not the type of news that my team and I were hoping to hear in the days leading up to this presentation. But, of course, a big part of working in fashion is always trying to deal as best you can with unexpected setbacks," he wrote, before thanking the Balmain team, the friends and colleagues who helped or reached out, and the Paris police, who — good news — recovered the stolen van and "some of the boxes."

See all the looks from the Balmain Spring 2024 collection below.