“As a child, watching The Lion King gave me the message to choose my own path,” says Olivier Rousteing, Creative Director of Balmain. The designer’s path has changed thirty years after the first animated feature was released; he teamed up with Disney to produce a joint collection in which he reinterprets the beloved classic from a luxury standpoint
Rousteing is aware of the moment’s cultural significance. In his typically direct manner, he says, “Thirty years ago, there wouldn’t be a collaboration [like this] with a Black designer because the reality in the French luxury world back then was that that person didn’t exist within that world.”
“I was obsessed with teddy bears,” he says of his early years. His parents, who adopted him at a young age, showered him with toys in a room. His favorite was a stuffed Simba.
Therefore, Rousteing sees much more in this opportunity than just the chance to build a collection. “When I started working at Balmain, I just wanted to be cool,” he says, adding that now that he is employed by Disney, he is “part of an institution that will remain forever.”
From the start, he was clear about his vision for the collection. He declares with pride that “The Lion King’s origins, which are in Africa, are its most important aspect.” Rousteing discovered that his biological parents are from Ethiopia and Somalia, despite having been born and raised in France, while he was filming his 2019 documentary Wonder Boy.
He compares himself to Mufasa in that regard, as the main character in Disney’s planned live-action picture Mufasa: The Lion King, which is scheduled for release in December 2024.
Femi Oladigbolu, a Nigerian filmmaker, immortalized the Disney x Balmain: The Lion King collection in a short video. Rousteing plays the principal part and the film is set in the Western Cape region of South Africa. A variety of models wearing his creations who were cast from around Africa, including Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda, and Tanzania, appear in the movie. In Rousteing’s words, this “gives local people the chance to shine” and increases the collaboration’s cultural influence. In keeping with the theme of The Lion King, Rousteing had a personal full-circle event while production. The movie itself centers on the idea of destiny. In her role as the sage older Black woman who is meant to predict his future, actress Carmen Hickman chose to improvise on
set. “She said to me: ‘Don’t forget this is your continent, this is where you come from, and you are loved here. You will always be loved,” Rousteing explains, hand on heart. “It was magical.”
