Balmain Designer Olivier Rousteing Talks Criticism with Iconic Journalist Suzy Menkes 

What a duo. Their mutual respect is inspiring.

Olivier faced such veiled contemptuous racism presented as “professional fashion critiques”. The establishment wanted him to fail but his prophetic vision for a new paradigm and his devotion to bring it into being, proved all the haters & gatekeepers to be hateful fans! 🥊

I think theres something to note, that the way one thought of critics in the past doesn't really exist any more. Except for the show notes on Vogue Runway and in the collections magazine edition, there's not really enough demand for it any more. Today, the average consumer, even of luxury goods, looks to social media to see what their peers or trusted influencers think and consume mostly in an audible format. However, these people are equally as subject to providing positive reviews as the magazines were back in the day because they both make/made their money on advertisers, not on sales. The difference between people like Suzy, Alexander Fury, Cathy Horyn and Robin Givhan is that they worked for publications that ran on sales, their papers would sell well regardless of if there was positive or negative critique, thereby making their criticism much more unbiased and trustworthy. Today, we don't really have this as much (and really thats a huge value of ShowStudio because they offer so many opinions on panels and in the immediate reviews in the car, and don't worry about the designers doing advertising) and theres certainly a gap for it. Imo, the way fashion critique is going, there needs to be a backer and a platform for young journalists to be able to write truthfully without the fear of not being included in the next fashion season, the same way the Herald Tribune did for Suzy, she was ALWAYS invited because the Herald carried weight, if they didn't cover a show then it was worse than a bad critique because it was out by the following day and so many other journalists would look to Suzy to base their reviews of the show. We need THAT again, a publication or commentary platform that carries weight, that will be invited every season (or at least provided a livestream link) regardless of if its a good or bad review (maybe thats the way showstudio is going? It seems like our best bet)

I love Olivier. His designs are so elegant and high class. And he has such a warm, down to earth personality. Suzy was also great and candid. Much respect to her!

Olivier is a pioneer! I worked for Balmain nyc bc of him but they were very racist towards him, Black employees, but worse: minority consumers. I never spoke publicly about it because it WAS NOT Olivier nor Emmanuel Diemoz’s fault but others Balmain representatives from Paris who did not appreciate the fact that Olivier made Balmain a household name and brought new clientele. Very disgusting attitudes.

So many gems of wisdom in this conversation. Happy I came across it!

Who else was cleaning their phone screen thinking the dot's in the background were dirt on their phone....no! Just me 😂

For Balmain, he is a brilliant Creative director he is on the right place

Olivier will always be a fashion icon, an inspiration to the black community everywhere

This was such a nice interview! 💗I loved how open Olivier was. However it felt like Suzy kinda deflected some of the questions from the host when they got a bit deeper and required a stronger stance. Nevertheless, it was a great to see this topic being discussed

This was so good . Can we have more of these please

Love this. Olivier is awesome

Her back to the audience

I appreciate @olivier so much and the respect for his experience in fashion from the beginning when he started. It is harder for me and some of us small emerging designers trying to break into the industry as well, facing critics' and the audience to impress them with our work. But I feel sometimes we need to just keep working harder to impress ourselves and critic our own work rather than caring more what others think... If they love it or love our pieces then that's a bonus for us ❤

Oliver I am big big fan of you and your work it's so fantastic what you are doing is like example for this young hier in Africa I love you and respect you

great combination.

Love it

I love my parents

Who is Olivier Rousteing...A French fashion designer who designs greeting cards for UNICEF and ALL proceeds donated to improving and promoting the welfare of children around the world. You are in my book, on Amazon, along with others like yourself. ZODICANTS JULY TO DECEMBER..Mary Wilson. Thanks for caring.