Balmain Creative Director Olivier Rousteing knows that to see the future, you need to look back. For 13 years, Rousteing has been at the helm of the French fashion house, celebrating Pierre Balmain’s legacy while reinvigorating the house for the present. As the designer says, “Balmain’s DNA is a fusion of past and future.” Now, with the launch of Balmain Beauty and a new luxury fragrance collection, Les Éternelles de Balmain, this century-long synergy extends to the house’s olfactory world. Debuting with eight genderless “maximalist” scents (four of which are reinterpretations of Balmain’s signature scents), the collection pays homage to the past while expanding on the future.
“To me, a maximalist scent has three elements,” Rousteing tells InStyle magazine. “It’s unique because it’s expressive; it’s memorable because when you wear it, you remember not only those around you but yourself; and it’s bold because it has the audacity to be your true self.”
Courtesy of Balmain
Rousteing began creating Balmain Beauty in 2020, a time he believes was fate after a severe burn accident that left him with both physical and mental scars. “It was an emotional process to create this concept so soon after that experience and to question what beauty means in this world,” he explains. “What I love about this fragrance is that it’s like therapy for me, a cathartic way to express my emotions. I don’t think you can begin the creative process without humility.”
And Rousteing, ever the student of life, delved deep into the art of fragrance, approaching it with couture-like precision. First, he enrolled at the Givaudan perfume school in Paris, where he spent weeks learning the craft, and eventually concocted his own fragrances in a lab. “If I wanted to make fragrance, I had to understand the process of every step,” he says. “So that’s how we started.”
Courtesy of Balmain
Continuing Balmain’s beauty tradition also meant digging into the archives and returning to the house’s first fragrance, the floral-inspired Elysées 64-83. It was launched in 1946, a year after Pierre Balmain introduced his “New French Style,” and he worked with the legendary Germaine Cellier, the pioneering pioneer who became the first woman to become a major perfumer. “Not only was she one of the first women, but she worked with ingredients that no one else dared to work with at the time,” he explains. “So for me,[their collaboration]is symbolic of Monsieur Pierre Balmain’s revolution.”
Pierre and Cellier would later collaborate on the wildly popular green fragrance Vert Vert, continuing to work together until 1967. Other key fragrances in the Balmain portfolio are the floral woody chypre Ivoire from 1979 and the amber woody Ebène from 1983. The former is even connected to one of Rousteing’s oldest and most vivid olfactory memories: his grandmother’s signature fragrance. “When I started Balmain 13 years ago, my grandmother said, ‘Oh my goodness, you’re going to Balmain? I’m wearing Ivoire!’ I didn’t know it as a child, but it was my grandmother’s scent.”
Courtesy of Balmain
In the end, Rousteing handpicked four of Balmain’s traditional scents to be part of this new chapter: Vert Vert, Ebène, Carbone and Ivoire. In Vert Vert 2.0, the floral green juices of the original galbanum are transformed into the new Mandarin Vert, with jasmine, basil, spearmint, fig and a woody blackcurrant base. Ebène, Pierre Balmain’s 1980s tribute to Africa, is deeper and richer with a new deep ebony wood accord mixed with tobacco, vanilla and cinnamon. The next generation, Carbone, is anchored by a contrast of sensual musk and fresh rose, warmed up by spicy cumin and leathery suede. As for Côte d’Ivoire, the wine Rousteing’s grandmother loved, the white floral bouquet of the original 1979 juice is retained, but a special infusion of tuberose enhances the vetiver scent.
New releases include Sel d’Ambre, inspired by “sparkling desert nights” with amber and salty ambergris; and Rouge, a tribute to Pierre Balmain and Rousteing’s shared love of Hollywood, is a floral and fruity bouquet featuring lilies, morea ciliata, apricot-like osmanthus, rich georgia wood and ylang-ylang. Bleu Infinie, a woody aromatic scent combining cistus absolute and salty lichen, transports the wearer (and fans!) to the Mediterranean island of Elba, where Pierre Balmain had a home. And then there’s Bronze, perhaps the most personal scent for Rousteing, inspired by his journey of healing after a burn accident. The woody chypre combines cedarwood with spicy notes like black pepper and tobacco, with a touch of herbaceousness from hay absolute.
Courtesy of Balmain
Another way Balmain celebrates its beauty heritage is with its vibrant metallic and jewel-toned bottle. The modern design pays homage to the brand’s first bottle from 1946, with the same black-and-gold color palette, geometric shapes and two-sided label. “The beauty of the bottle respects Balmain’s strengths: the cut, the craftsmanship and the texture,” says Rousteing. “When you hold it in your hand, it feels so luxurious.”
Rousteing embodies Balmain’s house codes of sharp lines, striking color, and luxurious detailing, infusing them seamlessly into a range of evocative scents. And like his previous fragrances, Rousteing is confident that Les Éternelles will be enduring in every way. “I wanted to create a fragrance that was iconic and timeless,” says Rousteing. “Not one that will be popular in a year or two, but one that will last forever.”
