Balmain launches exclusive capsule collection for MyTheresa.com

By

Triana Alonso

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Nov 7, 2018

On November 7, luxury Parisian label Balmain boosted its online presence by launching an exclusive 10-item capsule collection created for German fashion e-tailer MyTheresa.com. This new online launch follows the recent announcement of Balmain's return to Paris’s haute couture calendar, after a sixteen-year absence.

For the collection, the creative director of Balmain, Olivier Rousteing, has reinterpreted 10 of the French label’s iconic items, exclusively for MyTheresa.com. With a nod to the festive season and Christmas in particular, Rousteing designed a series of winter looks with a glam feel, priced from €195 to €1,790. From double breasted dresses and jackets to tweed miniskirts, to a cotton sweatshirt and a sleeveless t-shirt sporting the Balmain logo, all of them in a palette of white and metallic grey, with golden details. Selecting these items from the Balmain treasure chest wasn’t easy for Rousteing, despite the fact he has now spent seven years in charge of style at the Parisian label. "It was very hard to pick only 10 items, given the effort that my team and I put in each collection. We chose a set of looks that have the strength to remain relevant for more than one season, inspiring several different iterations,” said Rousteing.

In parallel with the opening of a flagship store on rue Saint-Honoré in Paris last summer, Balmain launched a new e-store in collaboration with the Yoox Net-A-Porter group, outsourcing the running of its e-tail business. The agreement followed the presentation of a Saint-Tropez-inspired summer capsule collection designed for Net-A-Porter just a few months before. The alliance with MyTheresa is a winter riff on that collection, specifically focused at the German e-tailer’s direct competitors. In terms of collaborations, Balmain marked a turning point in the democratization of luxury in 2015, with its successful collection for Swedish fast-fashion giant H&M. Last summer, Olivier Rousteing presented a limited-edition charitable collection with Beyoncé, another success, though not on the same scale as that of the H&M collaboration. Balmain did the same also in lingerie and cosmetics, with Victoria’s Secret and L’Oréal respectively.

Ads

As for MyTheresa, the e-tailer owned by US group Neiman Marcus is expanding its catalogue. From January 2019, it will begin to also sell childrenswear, following in the footsteps of other competitors such as Net-A-Porter. According to President Michael Kliger, this decision has been inspired by "the spectacular growth of the market for luxury children’s fashion, due to the influence of streetwear." Also, MyTheresa launched a Spanish-language version of the site last April, and further confirmed its interest in the Spanish market four months later, when it opened its first offices in Barcelona, consistent with the company’s “globalisation efforts,” according to Kliger. MyTheresa.com was created in 2006, and in the last financial year its revenue grew 34%, reaching €245 million.