It’s a thing of beauty. A chic crowd packed an airy space strewn with beige sofas at the Trocadero during Paris Fashion Week to see Olivier Rousteing’s latest for Balmain’s Spring/Summer 2025 show. And from the start, it was clear that fashion beyond the physique was on the mind of the genius designer.
As models floated down the runway, the very first look on Vika Evseeva, a sculptural micro-shimmer mini, had a gasp-worthy, stylized print of bold red lips and nails. The next, a silhouette of a face (Rousteing buddy Kylie Jenner’s!) The parade continued with slinky suits and more frocks cut with pointed power shoulders, impossibly nipped-in waists and hyper-shapely hips. But it was the accessories that caught our eye.
Caps clutched between fingers, models carried bottles of the French fashion house’s new fragrance collection, Les Éternels de Balmain, as if they were accessories. Some even had giant replicas of the bottles slung over shoulders as proper purses. The move celebrated the newly launched line — a collaboration with the Estée Lauder Cos. — and the whole vibe of the collection and the show went a step further to cement the label’s commitment to beauty, perhaps teasing an upcoming launch of color cosmetics.
Les Éternels, the first collection from Balmain Beauty, has eight gender-fluid fragrances, each multi-faceted and meant to inspire the wearer to discover themselves. Four scents are reincarnations from the Balmain fragrance archives — Vert Vert, Ébène, Carbone and Ivorie (which Rousteing remembers as his grandmother’s scent) while new creations include Rouge, Bronze, Bleu Infiniti and Sel d’Ambre. Rousteing serves as the creative director for the line, and even went to fragrance school to become a nose so he could fully understand the complexities of fashioning fragrances.
To discover the unique aromas and stories behind each scent, the brand opened a boutique at 8 rue des Francs Bourgeois in Paris’ artsy-chic neighborhood, Le Marais. The centerpiece of the space is an installation dubbed the Sense Portal that invites patrons to experience each fragrance in the collection via multiple senses simultaneously — one lifts a bottle and a screen tells a visual story while a diffuser emits aroma and the sleek, jewel-like exterior can be felt.
“The idea was to create something that goes beyond the olfactive,” Balmain Beauty creative director Hans Dorsinville says. “It’s true inclusivity.” Dorsinville was inspired by a scene in the 1978 film Superman, when the main character discovers a crystal formation that allows him to experience enlightening thoughts and flashbacks. “It’s all about self-discovery.”
