At the height of Paris Fashion Week, Balmain Beauty filled its 8 Rue Franc Bourgeois with models, fragrance fans and fashion industry insiders. The atmosphere outside the Parisian boutique was filled with excitement, carrying over from the day before when Balmain presented its stunning SS25 collection at the Palais Chaillot. Like a spark at the end of a fuse, the group’s excitement quickly rose as a black car pulled up in front of the building. The French house’s visionary creative director, Olivier Rousteing, appeared alongside actress and musician Dove Cameron.
Cameron and other stars of the brand’s Les Eternelles de Balmain fragrance campaign stood by Rousteing’s side to cheer him on as he cut the ribbon to officially open Balmain Beauty’s first boutique. The entire glamorous lineup wore fresh-off-the-runway Balmain SS25s. While Cameron and the creative director wore sharp all-black silhouettes, other muses showed off gorgeous gowns that wowed the catwalk. Once the ribbon-cutting ceremony was complete, guests streamed into the space to get an envious glimpse of the legacy brand’s newest brick-and-mortar location.
At home and abroad, the glamorous “Les Eternelles de Balmain” campaign has been immortalized. Architectural vessels filled the space in dynamic installations, lining shelves and sparkling in staggered tower configurations. The giant bottle contains a mix of sample-sized tubes of different shades and of course scents. Among them is a sensual bouquet of passionate red rouge and a trio of triumphant cedarwood behind bronze inspired by rebirth. Several pieces in the collection recreate or reimagine Maison founder Pierre Balmain’s original eau de parfum, including the 1947 Van Vert, the elegant Yvoire and the men’s fragrance Ebeine.
Bold campaign snapshots filled with bright colors and rich symbolism filled the outdoor windows. The striking photographs were also displayed on screens framed on the walls of the boutique’s all-white interior, transforming the space into a veritable gallery.
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Each campaign display symbolizes universal themes such as peace, regeneration, freedom and unity. Surrounded by oversized square perfume bottles, the models are posed in sculptural poses against a brightly colored background, hinting at the elemental story behind each scent. The story begins with a campaign for the introductory scent Carbone, which features a double depiction of Cameron (and a lacquered black Balmain Beauty perfume bottle) on the surface of a triangular transparent mirror. This image suggests self-reflection, duality, and multifaceted identity, but it does not take into account the fragrance itself.
Smoky Carbon embodies duality through its contrasting aromas, a seductive blend of pure white musk and seductive rose neoabsolute. Take a meditative breath and experience the richness of the fragrance’s layers, featuring warm notes such as patchouli, suede, and cumin. Carbone is the first step on a journey of self-discovery, or as Balmain Beauty calls it, the “quest for identity.” The unisex fragrance aims to help you discover your inner self and reveal your true identity in the world through a layered experience of eight exquisite scents.
“What I love about perfumes is that emotion. It’s you, but it inspires others to understand who you are,” Rousteing said.
The new beauty flagship is uniquely equipped to support your journey of self-discovery thanks to ‘The Sense Portal’. A patented olfactory experience, this portal uses special sensors to allow full immersion in all eight perfumes in the collection. It does this by appealing to all five senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. Not only do you inhale the grassy floral notes of the reinvented Van Weer, you are transported to a Garden of Eden paradise that inspires respect for the natural world. Once you pass through The Sense Portal, you’ll never look at perfume the same way again.
Fragrance is an invisible but arguably one of the most important aspects of self-expression. It leaves a subconscious impression on everyone we meet, lingering even in our absence, triggering a flood of memories with the slightest hint of a nostalgic scent. Our signature scents, which change as we change and grow, are another way we tailor our introduction to the world and shape our experiences within it. Les Eternelles de Balmain is therefore the retail equivalent of a signature fragrance, perfect for the opening of the Maison’s first boutique. In Rousteing’s own words, “[Balmain’s]Beauty is not a new chapter; it is a new book” that we are writing together. ” If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a scent is worth a whole language.
Click here to enter “The Sense Portal”.
