A Look Back at Balmain’s Fashion Collaborations

Layla Ilchi

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Balmain’s makeup collection with Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics might be one of the buzziest collaborations of the season, but it certainly isn’t the first for the designer brand.

During his eight-year tenure as creative director of the brand, Olivier Rousteing has teamed with a number of other brands, including H&M, Victoria’s Secret and L’Oréal Paris.

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Rousteing also doesn’t shy away from a celebrity collaboration. Known for his social media savviness — and his “Balmain Army,” which includes many of Jenner’s family members in addition to models Gigi Hadid and Jourdan Dunn, among others — Rousteing has also worked with Beyoncé and Cara Delevingne on a number of campaigns and collections.

Read on for more of Balmain’s fashion collaborations through the years.

Balmain x H&M

Balmain joined the lengthy roster of designer brands to collaborate with fast-fashion retailer H&M in 2015, which Rousteing generated buzz for on social media with #HMBalmaination.

The collection was initially unveiled at the Billboard Music Awards, where Rousteing, Kendall Jenner and Jourdan Dunn walked the red carpet wearing pieces from the collaboration. Balmain and H&M then debuted the full line a few days later at a runway show in New York, which was modeled by Balmain’s muses Jenner, Dunn and Gigi Hadid, and included a musical performance by The Backstreet Boys.

The capsule collection was a take on Rousteing’s couture pieces, made at a more affordable cost. It included the tailored blazers, beaded dresses, wrap skirts and chain detailing that Rousteing’s design aesthetic has become known for.

“Pushing the couture feeling was not easy,” he said in an interview with WWD. “They made it happen in a really beautiful way.”

Balmain x Beats

Rousteing enlisted Kylie Jenner to be the face of his collaboration with Beats in 2017. The collection included gold and forest green versions of the Beats PowerBeats3 wireless headphones and the Beats Studio Wireless over-ear headphones, which retailed for $599.95 and $249.95 respectively.

Balmain x Victoria’s Secret

Victoria’s Secret embarked on its first fashion collaboration in 2017 with Balmain. Rousteing was tasked with designing punk-inspired pieces for the lingerie brand’s annual fashion show — which that year was in Shanghai — that included T-shirts, crop tops and lingerie created with spikes and tartan prints.

“What I love about Victoria’s Secret is obviously their sense of beauty and glamour and confidence as well,” Rousteing said in a video interview with WWD. “We wanted to do glam-punk, something that is really rock ‘n’ roll, sexy glamour punk, and a bit inspired by Michael Jackson at the same time because we’re not going to go for really edgy punk. We have Victoria’s Secret, so obviously it was important for me to make it punk couture.”

L’Oréal Paris x Balmain

Rousteing made his first foray into beauty by teaming with L’Oréal Paris in 2017 for a capsule collection of lipstick. The 12-lipstick collection included a multitude of hues, including traditional reds, pinks and neutrals, and more unconventional colors, like purple, blue and a metallic green.

The designer created the line with three themes in mind which were reflected in the packaging — Glamazone in a green marble tube, Glamorous Couture in an onyx tube and Edgy Rock in a blue tube.

Rousteing also appeared in the ad campaign for the collaboration, alongside 12 diverse models — including the likes of Lara Stone, Valentina Sampaio, Soo Joo Park and Doutzen Kroes — who each wore a shade from the collection.

Balmain x Beyoncé

Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella performance was iconic for a number of reasons — it was the first time a black woman headlined the festival, Destiny’s Child reunited on stage and Jay-Z and Solange made appearances, among other things — but it also marked a special collaboration between the singer and Balmain.

Rousteing made custom outfits for Beyoncé’s performance, including an elaborately jeweled robe and bodysuit with matching headpiece as well as a collegiate-inspired hoodie, denim shorts and fringed boots, which were in line with the set’s Homecoming theme.

Beyoncé’s pieces and other varsity styles — which paid homage to the legacy of historically black colleges in the U.S. — worn throughout the performance were then released by Balmain in the Balmain x Beyoncé collaboration.

Balmain x Cara

A longtime muse and close friend to Rousteing, model Cara Delevingne teamed with the designer this year for a collection of three quilted leather bags with gold details. This marked the first time the designer and model collaborated on a collection, however, Delevingne has routinely appeared on the Balmain runway and in multiple campaigns for the brand.

Most recently, Delevingne appeared in the brand’s spring 2019 campaign, where she was photographed topless alongside Rousteing in one image and photographed completely nude in another. “The campaign shows the reunion of two skin tones, one black — or mixed race — and one white,” Rousteing told WWD. “Choosing to pose naked was all about authenticity. We’re going back to basics: I wanted something pure and transparent.”

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