Wednesday evening, Olivier Rousteing raised, on the edge of the sumptuous ballroom of the InterContinental in Paris, a singular ode to femininity. His collection, stripped of the armors that once made the glory of the “Balmain army,” allowed itself to be caressed by the sea breeze. As in the days when Yves Saint Laurent, in the ochre gardens of Marrakech, transfigured the desert into a palace of colors, Rousteing too seemed to seek the impulse of a fashion that breathes, that pours out, that surrenders.

Bustiers reminiscent of towels wrapped around the body the same that once caused a stir at the Met Gala fringes cascading like seaweed on the shore, shells suspended like talismans: the entire collection evoked the blue hours of Saint-Tropez, when the sun sets in a clamour of gold and the shadows of parasol pines stretch a veil of melancholy over the sea. It was no longer a place where elegant women sought to armor themselves, but rather to uncover, to allow sand, wind, and water to reclaim their rights over adornment.

There was, in this presentation, something of an intimate procession, a pilgrimage. Dresses strung with pearls and seashells recalled ancient offerings, while a bustier, resembling an amethyst caught in its very birth, seemed to proclaim that beauty is nothing but a fleeting spark, seized within the heart of matter.

Like Saint Laurent, Rousteing appears to have found his inner Orient. Where the former once withdrew into the haven of the Majorelle gardens, the latter wanders in thought through an imaginary villa, its walls whitened by the “taupe rose of Cairo,” surrendered to forsaken memories. In that silent hall, the echo of his footsteps resounds like that of one who seeks no longer glory, but mere survival; no longer the tumult of networks, but the solemn calm of a conquered timelessness.

For at the hour when luxury houses gamble with destinies in the haste of a game of musical chairs, Rousteing stands for constancy. He knows himself among the oldest of the young, and it is in this very seniority that he draws his strength. “It is not armor, it is freedom,” he says, as though, after the tumult of battles and the search for the absent biological parent  he were finally choosing the peace of the open sea.

Thus rises this new collection, ample and unrestrained, like a sail swollen with hope, launched no longer toward the fleeting instant, but toward eternity that only dwelling where, in my view, fashion may still find shelter.

FM