Balmain teams up with Gisele Bündchen and Rafael Pavarotti for a rosy spring campaign

Just as you’d expect, while we were working on our flower-focused designs for the Balmain Spring 2024 collection, my team and I kept repeating that brilliantly sarcastic line from our favorite film. I’m sure you which one I’m talking about: Miranda Priestly’s unforgettable dismissal of a florals-for-spring theme as “groundbreaking.” But even as we joked about it, we were determined to continue pulling out all the stops, as we wholeheartedly embraced the joy, femininity and exuberance of the rose, the fragrant bloom that always held such a special place in our founder’s many garden and couture designs. 

And, by the time we were ready to send the models down the runway, we’d inserted that fragrant and colorful perennial into the better part of our collection, playing with multiple forms—from single-bud embellishments to prints bursting with gardens of cabbage roses. In addition, our atelier craftsmen, as well as talented outside artisans, created striking three-dimensional roses from the widest-possible variety of materials. As I noted more than a few times backstage, the perfect summation of our Balmain roseraie might be the most famous quote from Pierre Balmain’s most famous friend, Gertrude Stein: “a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”

While Balmain Spring 2024 is anything but superficial (I made very sure that our stems contained more than their fair share of thorns, to best reflect the compelling complexity of desire), our colorful collection for this season is definitely an unabashed celebration of the power of love, beauty and joy—because today we could definitely all use a whole lot more joy, beauty and love in our lives. So, when it came time to shoot these designs, I knew exactly who to partner with: Rafael Pavarotti, who had just overseen a series of stunning images for our Balmain Fall 2023 campaign. 

Deciding on the spirit, focus, attitude and star of the spring campaign was just as easy: Gisele. Of course, it had to be Rafael’s compatriot, Gisele Bündchen. One of the reasons that I was so obsessed with Gisele as a teenager was her amazing personality. I mean, obviously, she’s a legendary beauty—but her breathtaking beauty is somehow transformed into something even more powerful when combined with that genuine happiness and confidence that she has been continually projecting for over twenty years, both on the runway and on those countless covers and editorials that I’ve always torn out and kept as inspirations.

 And, just to clinch the deal, knowing that Gisele had a role in The Devil Wears Prada was the perfect final touch needed to bring our whole florals- for-spring references full circle. You’ll note that in one shot, Giselle is holding a special Balmain design for this season: our new Jolie Madame. Jolie Madame refers to the house’s legendary mid-century silhouette..

What I like most about this new luxury bag’s silhouette is that it reflects both the audaciousness of Monsieur Balmain’s fresh and feminine postwar collections and the drive for incorporating surprising innovations that’s helping to set apart today’s Balmain—for those who know the brand well will not be surprised to hear that my team and I have channeled the same inventive spirit of our most recent runways as well as our latest sneaker
designs when we crafted this futuristic design, as we continued to meld together surprising shapes and materials (including rubber) with the finest in Parisian couture craftsmanship and traditions.

Let me close this note by saying muito obrigado to the powerful Brazilian duo of Gisele and Rafael. You two formed the ideal team, giving our latest campaign exactly the type of colorful ebullience that we needed. Together, you’ve perfectly captured the effervescent essence of our Balmain Spring rose garden.

Olivier Rousteing
Paris
20 February 2024

“I’ve always been impressed with Olivier's unique gift for creating exquisite collections and working with him on the Balmain Spring-Summer 2024 campaign was a special experience for me. Olivier and I looked to Pierre Balmain's gardens as one of our chief sources of inspiration, as they embody the concepts of heritage, femininity and elegance that we wanted to communicate through these images.” Rafael Pavarotti