NikeLab Taps Olivier Rousteing

The Balmain creative director is the latest designer to collaborate with the sports heavyweight.

“Olivier Rousteing is known for tailoring formfitting silhouettes,” reads the press notes that accompany the designer’s latest collaboration. The creative director behind French fashion house Balmain, Rousteing is also known for his considerable Instagram presence, where his hook up with NikeLab was first hinted at (to 3.2 million followers no less).

“Fashion is usually about the catwalk and the glamour, but with Nike it was about performance and the athletes,” he explains. “What I love about this collection is that we are integrating the iconic style of football into sport style.”

Dropping in-store and online on 2nd June, the collection is the second in NikeLab’s Summer of Sport series, which sees the sports giant marrying Nike’s much hyped innovation with the creative direction of one of France’s most important contemporary designers.

Designed, apparently, to meet ‘off-pitch performance needs while pushing the sports’s aesthetic forward’ (no doubt with a nod to UEFA Euro 2016), the full line up boasts an exclusively black and gold palette while the iconic Nike swoosh is a key feature.

“Olivier was obsessed with the complete look,” notes the brand’s Senior Apparel Design Director, Jarrett Reynolds. “At every design review he’d ask, ‘would a football player really wear that?’ The question helped keep the collection rooted in sport.”

www.nike.com

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