Olivier Rousteing: 'Fashion helped me to build my identity'

15 March 2017

Olivier Rousteing believes fashion has allowed him to "build" his identity.

Olivier Rousteing

The 31-year-old creative director of Balmain - who joined the fashion house in 2009 - believes he came from "nowhere" because he was adopted at a young age and never knew his biological parents, but he has praised the creative industry as helping him to discover himself and to feel "stronger" and "more confident".

Speaking in a video with Allure Online, the fashion designer said: "I think fashion helps you to feel unique and special. To me, if I'm honest and personal, I came from nowhere. I was adopted I came from an orphanage, I don't know my parents, my biological parents, but I think fashion helped me to build my identity in a way, To feel stronger, more confident with myself.

"Try to find your own identity, and it helped me to grow up, and I think, today, with my fashion I help to make people believe in themselves, being confident, feel powerful ... and confidence is important in life."

And the French entrepreneur - who boasts a celebrity clientele including Rihanna, Kim Kardashian West and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley - wanted to make both the models and customers feel like empowered warriors when they adorned his garments, which led him to coin the term Balmain Army.

He explained: "Personalities are important. I think a lot of designers forget that you talk to women, you don't talk to hangers, you talk to girls who actually have power. So I think you need to feel it. And I think when I started to get my first critiques and [they were] just calling me 'too much' or whatever it is, I was just like actually they are not models, they are defending more than just clothes they are defending my ideas. So, I think, to me, they were more amazing they are soldiers, warriors, and we are going to create an army of people who fight for their rules, fight for their identity and their ideas, and that's why I started the Balmain Army.

"And all of my girls love it because they fight every day to be who they are, and be respected for who they are and what they do, and I think with fashion we have to fight and go into revolution to make changes."