Review of Balmain Spring 2021 Fashion Show from Paris
Emotion & Fun
By Long Nguyen
“A bit of emotion and fun,” Olivier Rousteing told one of the models wearing a bright neon yellow fitted suit with giant pagoda shoulders as he inspected the line-up, moments before the live evening outdoor show in Paris at the Jardins des Plantes.
This live streaming broadcast of the Balmain backstage was probably one of the funniest and most charming backstage broadcasts streaming I have ever seen from any fashion brands. The light humor from the model and from their interactions with other models, with the hair and makeup team who checked on their manes and cheeks and eyebrows and the meandering designer who checked on everything head to toe with his stop and glance routine reflected a way of being, so to speak, at Balmain. One model almost forgot to remove her mask as she stood waiting for her turn still wrapped with the tin foil for warmth. While a serious enterprise, fashion is at least at Balmain fun and joyful each new season.
We believe that fashion is best experienced when presented live and we know that a shared experience is crucial for our fashion community.
– Olivier Rousteing
Rousteing divided the show into two segments: the first about heritage and the now and the second portion dwelled on the massive spring collection (Balmain shows are known for a lot of looks whether men or women shows) where all fashions started with the shoulder, giant pagoda shoulder.
“We designers are very tremendously sensible to what’s happening around. When you want to look younger you want to look more carefree, a little bit more casual. Black is the only color that young people can wear more successfully than old people. A young girl dressed in black is always tremendously beautiful than an older woman in black. That’s why black is not an old color, it’s a young color, black velvet is the young and sexy charm because there is a touch of sex in fashion now,” said a voice recording of Pierre Balmain made in the 1970s from the house archives where Rousteing found the original PB logo and some garments with that brown graphic print.
The voice of Pierre Balmain guided a group of older women, once famous models in Paris in their days such as Amalia Vairelli, Axelle Doué, Barbara, Charlotte Flossault, Sonia and Violeta Sanchez in a special choreographed performance directed by Olivier Saillard similar to his ‘Models Never Talk’ museum show in 2014, only this time the same women were wearing heritage Balmain archival looks made with PB prints as an homage to the past. The clothes shown – slim pantsuit, high waisted flare pants and black turtleneck, loose trench, a broad folded shoulder jacket pantsuit – were clothes that Rousteing found in the stored archives and recognized their relevance then as now. And in the now, these updated 1945 PB logo adorned bags and clothes readied for sales, some during the show at the brand e-commerce site and on Instagram Live Shopping.
Ah those shoulders! Well those pagoda stickup broad shoulders pretty much anchored the top-heavy silhouette that pervaded the entire collection beginning with acid bright yellow and pink loose dropped lapel double-breasted jacket with cigarette pants, to grey oversize jackets, to white tuxedo jacket, and to well just about nearly every tops in this show. While this shoulder shape may not be a new fashion invention, it is executed here with some humor. If you look carefully at the clothes though, there are some pretty serious tailoring and workmanship hidden amidst all these loud colors and odd shapes. The evening dresses were more subdued and much less ostentatious and embellished. But among all those shoulder-padded outfits was a simple strapped denim long dress slit on the side and worn with a pair of washed jeans. This look was like the eye of this Category 5 Hurricane.
The menswear is particularly strong, with all the range of jackets and coats in wool and denim paired with a slim cigarette or flared pants or tailored knee-length fitted shorts. The double-breasted jacket in PB pattern fabric paired with the knee-length short pants was one of the strong looks for men. Save for say a lightly beaded cardigan, there were practically no decorations at all with the men’s clothes this time.
Fashion is about tomorrow and as such, there is always hope for new clothes. If you don’t like the sparkle dress or sweater or jacket this time, well there will be different versions next time; if you don’t like the giant protruding shoulder pads this time, there will be more tempered versions next season. Even if this kind of ‘strong’ shoulder isn’t your thing, you might be convinced of its capacity to draw you into its world.
This collection is destined for an audience not so consumed by the vagaries of trends percolating each season from Paris. They don’t care if these giant shoulders were seen elsewhere. They are fans that root for the home team every time regardless.
And the designer has carefully built up this fan base over these years converting them to his sense of fashion because they see his values as their own values. As such the products are secondary to the values that extend from the person to the brand to the consumer.
“Je pense qu’en effet si je laisse un trace plutard, ce sera sans doute parce que tout au long de ma carrièrre, j’aurais essayer de maintenir la preéminence du goût et de l’élégance française. Au fond je sais que je possède cette clé – d’une élégance française, une élégance mesurée, cartésienne … ma création artistique, ma création plastique repos sur le souci de la qualité en même temps que sur l’équilibre de la construction,” Pierre Balmain said in his own recorded voice played in French at the start of the show. (“I think in effect if I leave behind a trace later, it will be without a doubt because all along my career, I tried to maintain the preeminence of taste and of French elegance. Deep inside I know I possessed this key – this French elegance, a measured elegance, Cartesian … my artistic creation, my plastic creation rest on the worry of quality at the same time as the equilibrium of construction.”) Often the incredible workmanship of tailoring is overlooked – here in the controlled constructions of the jackets, the coats and pants. It is easy to get distracted at this show and forget the tailoring and the haute couture foundation of the house that is carried on in these clothes, however different they are in their current expressions.
In the end the show was about optimism, of hope that fashion will carry one no matter what direction the industry will take. Rousteing reminded everyone of how he got here personally and that not long ago someone like him would never occupy such a position. “Change happens,” he said.
In a celebration of the fashion community many of which were missing this show, Rousteing partnered with LG to install 58 TV sets on an empty section at the show in rows of TVs each representing the missing guests in a gesture of magnanimity. Yes for community. Here is a kid who emptied an entire section of his show to put up rows of televisions to acknowledge the work and the contribution of those MIA tonight at his show. What can we all say to this gesture of utmost grandeur? That’s how to treat a community – not only with words but with actions.
But Rousteing was single-handedly the only designer in a Paris heritage house who has since he was appointed in mid-2011 as creative director, been attentive to creating community beginning with the Balmain Army, the community of hardcore fans very much like the Collectif Ultras Paris (CUP) – the army of hardcore supporters of Paris’s football team PSG on game night in the Virage Auteuil at Parc des Princes.