Olivier Rousteing, the designer who spent 14 years turning Balmain into a celebrity-dressing machine, is Rabanne’s next creative director. Puig announced the appointment on Tuesday (July 14), Bastille Day, three weeks after Julien Dossena said he was leaving after 13 years. Rousteing’s first pre-fall collection for the house arrives in November, and his runway debut is set for Paris Fashion Week in March 2027.
“Joining Rabanne is a tremendous honor,” Rousteing, 40, said in a statement, calling it “a House that has always challenged convention.” Ana Trias, Puig’s president of prestige and fashion brands, called his vision “bold, magnetic, and deeply connected to the energy of today.” He told WWD, in a quote The Industry carried, what drew him to the brand: “What is most impressive about Paco Rabanne is that in the ’60s and ’70s, he was pushing boundaries. Everybody at that time was doing gowns, so it was a revolution to actually think metal could be a dress, that PVC could be a dress.”
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The hire is a bet on reach. Rousteing built the “Balmain Army,” a network of models, influencers and celebrities that included the Kardashians, and Vogue Scandinavia notes he has 9.4 million Instagram followers to Rabanne’s 1.9 million. He left Balmain in November 2025, then returned to the spotlight in May with a custom gown for Beyoncé at the Met Gala, a skin-toned mesh base with a diamond skeleton design that stretched to her fingers.
Dossena’s tenure had its own list of names. Under him, W Magazine says, Rabanne became a celebrity-dressing destination: Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus and Anya Taylor-Joy wore the label, and he dressed Sabrina Carpenter for the 2022 Met Gala. In 2023, the year Paco Rabanne was shortened to Rabanne, it became Puig’s first brand to pass €1 billion in sales.
Rousteing’s own plan is to merge two halves of the business. “There will be one story line: Fashion and beauty meets each other, that’s gonna be my role,” he told WWD, as quoted by The Industry. Puig’s plan is a “steady and sustainable” one, Trias said, with measured retail expansion and new fashion categories. The first look at what that means arrives with the November pre-fall collection.
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.
