Balmain Designer Olivier Rousteing Reveals Secret Injuries from Fireplace Explosion Accident
Olivier Rousteing, the creative director for Balmain, has revealed that he kept fire-related injuries after an explosion hidden for a full year.
The designer disclosed his past condition in an Instagram post yesterday. Rousteing stated that a year ago, the fireplace at his home exploded and he was rushed to the Paris’ Hôpital Saint Louis. In the post, the designer can be seen with numerous burns and in a full torso, arm and head casts and bandages. “I did everything to hide this story from as many people as possible and trying to keep the secret with my teams and friends for too long,” he stated.
Rousteing continued, disclosing that his shame came from “maybe this obsession with perfection that fashion is known for and my own insecurities…” He also revealed that he continued working on numerous collections despite his severe injuries, hiding his scars with masks, long-sleeved garments, turtlenecks and rings for interviews and photo shoots. “I truly realized that the power of social media is to reveal only what you want to show ! Kind of allowing us to create our own special narrative that avoids what we do not wish to see or show: this is our new world,” Rousteing stated.
Now, healed exactly a year later, the designer shared how grateful and lucky he feels for his life. “never never give up ! There is always the sun after the storm,” he stated online.
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In show notes from his spring ’22 Paris Fashion Week runway, which celebrated Rousteing’s 10th anniversary at Balmain, he explained how the experience inspired his designs. “Hospital rooms, bandages and gauze wraps suddenly became a big part of my life — and as I began sketching, I found myself translating those months of doctors and physical therapy into today’s many bands, weaves and dangling straps,” Rousteing wrote. “In addition, the sets of multiple golden bands that you’ll spot adorning the models’ hands riff on the ring sets that I adopted to help hide my scars during recovery. By embracing that previous pain and celebrating the power of healing, somehow I’ve been able to translate them into beautiful components of my designs.”
