Captured at Charles de Gaulle Airport in and around a recently underused Air France 777, Balmain Fall Collection served to whet the appetite even more for imminent escape. Amusing accessories included paper-plane suitcase charms, neck-pillow earrings and handbags, working compass pendants.

Olivier Rousteing was inspired in part by Pierre Balmain’s postwar travels, and was tickled to learn that shortly after the founder established his couture house, he took to the skies to promote Parisian fashions, touching down first in Sydney and later to New York.

Indeed, one of designer’s more grounded and approachable collections, with a bigger focus on daywear: grand tailored coats with rows of gold buttons, meaty shearling vests and bomber jackets, plus lots of roomy pants in khaki green.

Fashion House purposefully dialed down the atelier-produced embellishment-heavy party dresses, banking instead toward the dialect of aviation specific utility-wear. This included shearling aviator jackets, greatcoats, flight suits, and webbing-strafed dresses in parachute silk.

Contrasting metallic hazmat chic against padded orange and olive outer-orbit-wear with rip-cord-pull hardware.

Glowing on the runway suspended in front of the moon – a special effect created using the largest LED screen that could be found in Europe. Rousteing is keen for doing a runway show on another planet one day as apparently “Earth is not enough”.

---

FULL RUNWAY SHOW